Thankful: For Snow

...though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be as white as snow.

Isaiah 1:18

I woke up early this morning - full of bustle and energy - at least an hour before my usual rising time.  My daughter and I dropped off my car at the Napa Auto Center around 7:50 a.m., then I took her back to the house and borrowed her car to go across town to the credit union, Tom Leonard's farmer's market, and Trader Joe's.  A stop at my insurance office to sign a document for my youngest daughter, and I was finished with the day's "run around" chores before noon - a record, I'm sure, for me!

After lunch, I busied myself with finishing up my grades for the last nine weeks, going through mail, dragging out the vacuum cleaner for a thorough run through the house, setting out some fresh Sabbath flowers, finishing up the order for matching shirts for the adult handbell choir, and doing some research on the Internet.  Around 3:00 p.m., I walked out of the office and decided to check outside to see how cold it was.  Imagine my surprise when I opened the door and found a beautiful mantle of white covering the lawn, the streets, and our cars!  When I checked the weather this morning, it did not say one thing about snow - so where did this all come from?  I grabbed a hat, coat, gloves and the snow shovel and moved the first inch of snow off the porch, sidewalks, driveway and vehicles.  I ended up going back outside around 6:00 p.m. to remove the last (almost) inch from the same surfaces.

New-fallen snow is one of the most beautiful sights in the world.  Within the brilliant white is a clarity and purity that can be found few other places.  This snowfall started with light, fluffy flakes, then changed to little tiny spheres of ice, topped by more of the fluffy stuff.  It turned my brown winter grass into a sparkling fairytale landscape. Viewing a fresh snow scene always fills me with a sense of peace and joy.  How marvelous of Jesus to use a snowfall as the illustration for what He can accomplish in our lives.