A couple of years ago, right around Thanksgiving, my family and I saw the first snow flurry of the winter. As I watched from my patio window, the white flakes got bigger. The wind picked up. Pretty soon, the flurry had turned into a bit of a storm.
For a moment, I was impressed by the strength of the weather. In my rising excitement, I wanted to say “Wow, it’s like a snow tornado out there!”
That’s not what came out of my mouth.
Not even close.
An amusing (and unintended) portmanteau
What came out of my mouth was, “Look! A snowtado!”
As in, snow. A tornado. A potato. Smashed together with poor pronunciation and mental association.
I’m all about a good portmanteau. But this one was not even remotely intentional.
My husband burst out laughing. I fake chided him for the laughter and told him not to say any more words (our code for “I know you’ve done nothing wrong/are right but shut up before I feel more embarrassed”).
In my defense, I was pretty tired at the time. But it’s not the first time my mouth got ahead of my brain. Once, when we were on vacation at our uncle’s camping resort, as we got ready for a little campfire, I intended to say it was time to light the fire and roll up the bottoms of my leggings. What I actually said was that it was “time to burn fire and roll up my feet.”
The making of a gift
A couple of weeks later, I stopped into the Goodwill store about a mile away looking for some project materials for my daughter.
Suddenly, there it was, on the shelf all by itself, just waiting for me to find it.
A vintage ceramic potato planter.
I instantly knew what to do with it.
A couple of days later, I presented a simple masterpiece to my husband as a gift — the potato planter, lovingly filled with some paper snowflakes. My instructions were clear. He was to put it on his desk at work so he could use my flub as a reason to smile when the day was yucky.
Our mistakes, if we laugh at them, can mean connection, not fear
So often in the professional world, we are scared of making mistakes. We think that we have to be perfect, and our worst nightmares are made out of “what ifs” around stumbling our words. We think that, in those moments, the only laughter that’s going to sound will be wrapped in judgment. Seriousness and getting it all right, the assumption is, preserves the link we have to others.
But we all have our snowtado moments. If we can remember in those moments that God isn’t expecting perfection, we can let the moment be silly. We can laugh at ourselves and, in that self-forgiveness, invite others to laugh, too. What might have been bound in fear instead becomes a moment of connection, even joy. We might even choose to deliberately remember the moment later so that the joy can be present again.
As I reflect on everything Jesus endured to become relatable to and have connection with His people, I like to imagine that we can, even in our mistakes, feel comfortable with Him in laughter. I consider that perhaps there have been many such moments between God and His servants, moments that only deepened love and faith. If my goofiness and blunders can create little gems of shared happiness with Him, I’m up for a million snowtadoes.
I hope you are, too.