Sheets of rain pelted the windshield as we drove out of town early one autumn morning. My hands gripped the steering wheel, and I squinted to see the winding mountain road. I was about to have an adventure. It just wasn't the one I planned.

My plan was to attend a Christian women's conference 650 miles away in Denver with 20,000 of my closest friends, ten of them from my home church. I was excited to hear famous Christian women speakers and musicians during a weekend of spiritual renewal, fellowship and fun. I expected a mountaintop experience. I expected to come home with a renewed faith. And I expected it to happen in Denver.

I just forgot that God doesn't always deliver what I expect.

We joked about our slogan "Denver or Bust." Like the Pony Express, nothing would stop our caravan. Not rain, sleet or snow. By the time we reached the Wyoming border, the rain became sleet and then snow.

"Here's those flurries Channel Two predicted," I announced. The backseat choir moaned, "Snow? This is September!" I quit sipping my truck-stop cappuccino and steered with both hands. "I'm sure it won't last," I said. "Wyoming always has these quick storms."

Before long, I couldn't see the white lines on the highway. The wind blew my SUV from side to side and I had to grip the steering wheel tighter just to keep it on the road. Icy chunks ganged up on the wipers and I couldn't clear the windshield. "Call the other car and tell 'em to pull over behind me. I can't see a thing."

Off the road, I hopped out of the car, turning my back to a blast of icy wind. I clutched my cotton sweater but it didn't help.

"Anybody got a jacket? Gloves? Boots?"

Our suitcases were bulging with jeans and sweaters and tennis shoes. Great packing for a crisp fall in Denver but not a freak blizzard in Wyoming. One friend offered me her polyester blazer. We shivered as we scraped the windshield with our credit cards.

I had doubts about getting back on the highway, but no one wanted to miss the Friday night speakers or waste our $50 tickets, so we crept along the interstate for a few more miles until traffic halted. Big truck. Little car. Bad crunch.

My hands started sweating and the world looked like a giant cotton ball. White everywhere, except it sure wasn't soft and fuzzy. Everyone, truckers included, exited the highway at Green River, population about the size of my high school graduating class. A truck stop was barely visible through the blowing snow.

Once there, we found a truck driver who gave us advice. "You ladies might want to find a bed to sleep in and quick," he said. "They're fixin' to close the interstate both ways." He shook his head and added, "Winter's here!"

But it was only September! And we were stuck in the middle of a blizzard in the middle of nowhere.

We pulled into the first motel that didn't have "Cheap Rooms" listed on its sign out front. The Sweet Dreams was no four-star but it had two vacant rooms, coffee pots and a bowling alley across the street. Hey, what more could ten Lutheran women want?

Discouraged and worn out, we shoe-horned ten women, eleven suitcases (okay, who packed the extra bag?), several bags of chips, licorice, cookies and four liters of diet soda into two rooms.

As I sloshed my way across the parking lot to get the last bag, I shook a figurative fist at the Lord. Hey, I'm supposed to be in the big city with big lights and big names! My frustration grew as the television newscaster reported highway closings. The weatherman suggested it could be 24 to 48 hours before we budged.

We had a choice. We could gripe and groan in our motel rooms, or we could have an adventure right here in Green River. We opted for the adventure bowling, shopping at the local dimestore where nylons were on sale for 29 cents, drinking diner coffee, and eating truck stop burgers dripping with grease.

Later that night, we squeezed into one room and opened our Bibles, taking turns reading from Psalms, Romans, Proverbs, Jeremiah. We shared personal stories that we never had time to share back home. We talked about love, sadness, despair and loneliness. We laughed, we cried, we prayed.

And God listened.

As the wind howled outside the door and the snow grew deeper, I began to wonder could this perhaps be the Lord's plan. No, this wasn't a professional conference with microphones and professional speakers in high heels. We didn't have a professional pianist and a fifty-voice choir. Just ten women stranded in a small town motel, but God was there in His Word.

By Sunday, the roads were clear and we could head home by noon. On the way out of town, we stopped to worship at the local Lutheran church. Filling the first two pews (only after the usher cleared off the dusty hymnals and Bibles), we heard the Word, prayed, sang hymns and feasted on the Lord's Supper.

At the end of the service, the Sunday school staff stepped forward for their installation. On this cold wintry morning in Green River, Wyoming, I watched a handful of dedicated Christian men and women promise to teach the Good News to little children.

And I couldn't stop my tears. This is what it's all about, the Lord seemed to whisper.

His work in a little church, in a little town, in a little way. His Way. Now that's what I call a mountaintop experience.

Beth Foreman is a freelance writer and editor for the Utah-Idaho District LWML. She and her family attend St. Paul, Ogden, Utah.