Ice-Off
Will 19 degrees Fahrenheit freeze water? Contrary to popular opinion, I learned the other day that it will not.
The situation was specific. The ice in our town’s lake was almost completely melted. For those of you “from away”, in the spring a lake’s ice first melts from the edges, not the middle. This leaves a gigantic ice cube in the middle of the lake. Day by day, the ice cube gets smaller and smaller, pushed first to this side of the lake and then the other, depending on the vagaries of the wind, until it’s completely gone. These unique days are called “ice-off.”
Ice-off presents a unique kayaking adventure that our family never wants to miss. It’s fun to be the first on the lake for the season. It’s fun to follow the little rivulets of open water that zigzag through the ice. It’s fun to ram your kayak onto the melting ice to see how far you can propel your boat forward. And it’s musical - the melting ice at the edge tinkles in a most confounding way.
So I was hoping ice-off would wait for my sons’ arrival home from college - I needed it to hold just a day or two more. By Thursday evening the remaining ice covered approximately twenty-five percent of the lake. But the temperature was to drop into the teens overnight and stay cold until my boys got home. Surely that would be enough to keep the ice, or perhaps even expand it.
No go. By 7 a.m. the next day the ice was gone. The ice was gone! Despite temperatures in the teens overnight! It turns out that that one eight-hour period of 19 degree air is not enough to keep ice from melting when that ice is sitting in the much denser mass of 34 degree water, that’s growing warmer because it’s surrounded by 36 degree land.
It took many hours of February and March sunshine to incrementally gain the upper hand...to warm the earth. This in turn melted the edges of the lake.
LITTLE BY LITTLE THIS OPEN WATER INCREASED...BECAUSE OF THE SUNSHINE, BECAUSE OF THE WARMTH. FINALLY, NOTHING, N O T H I N G COULD TURN BACK THE ADVENT OF SPRING.
Little by little this open water increased...because of the sunshine, because of the warmth. Finally, nothing, n o t h i n g could turn back the advent of spring.
If you want changes in your life, seek the sunlight. Seek lots of sunlight. Turn off the evening news, turn up Christian radio. Tune into the Bible, tune out questionable websites. Turn up at church. Seek lots of sunlight, when you’re seeking a better way. It may take time, but change is inevitable.
“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing...” Hebrews 10:23, 25
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