Snow again

Everyone assures me that we do not usually get this much snow, but really, I'm not concerned. (I did go to school in South Carolina, but I did not grow up there. I was nearly born in a blizzard.) Although I realize I may be eating these words by late April, I actually kind of like snow. I really do not enjoy shoveling off my car every morning, but this is neatly avoided most of the time because I am blessed with a garage.

As a kid, of course, snow mostly meant possible snow days, which was always good. In college, I started noticing the snow more for its own sake. It's beautiful, and extraordinarily complex, when you think about it. A single snowflake is a marvel of God's creation, tiny and perfect and complete. Put a whole lot of them together, though, and they can literally change the face of the world. Rough edges become smooth. Even the deepest valleys are less deep, in a literal acting-out of the Baptizer's cry, "Prepare the way of the Lord!" (c.f. Isaiah 40:3-5).

Have you ever seen a fresh snowfall in the city? Before, everything is brown and grey and ugly. After, even the dreariest abandoned lot has its own beauty. In just a short while, dirty cars and polluted air will turn it to sludge and muck, but for a moment, you could imagine that it will be perfect forever. In Starbuck, at least on my out-of-the-way street, it takes a little longer for the spell to be broken (less cars driving by, not so much smog), which makes the transformation perhaps a bit less obvious--but still, it's there, every single time it snows, softening the edges of my bootprints in my backyard. That, to me, is a perfect image of God's grace: we are covered in God's love like a blanket of snow, made pure and fresh and beautiful, all our sins and imperfections wiped clean. And unlike the snow, which is temporary, God's grace will last forever.

"...though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow..." (Isaiah 1:18b)

By spring, I may feel differently. But for now, whenever I see falling snow, I think of God. Is it any wonder it still makes me smile?

~Pastor Sarah