One Little Snowflake

For the first three to four months of the year, I usually count myself as one of the snow-haters. I feel like snow should be "allowed" in December (only when it doesn't interfere with holiday celebrations and travelling) but usually dislike very much the fact that it usually sticks around until the last week of April.

Ice in the driveway. Extra chores. Longer commutes. Slush everywhere. Gray, gray, gray. Dirty floors. Bursting coat closets. Ongoing coughs and runny noses. Higher utility bills. Extra layers needed just to take a bag of garbage out to the trash can. Cabin fever.

As I am not a skier or snowboarder and am not a fan of being cold, I really have nothing good to say about the snow.

Except that my mindset changed today.

Many of you have probably seen this cool link floating around social media.

Really, check it out.

photo by Alexey Kljatov, featured on the Huffington Post

I saw this article and these photographs a few weeks ago. And today, when the blizzard showed up at my house in full force, instead of groaning, I looked outside for several minutes and simply marveled at the way that the uninterrupted white covered everything in a kind of quiet perfection. I admired the beauty of the tree in our backyard whose branches were perfectly outlined and highlighted by the snow. I thought about how many billions of snowflakes it takes to make up that kind of beauty.

And I remembered that each one was created different, but equal.

I realized this morning that God did not mean for snow to be an annoyance. I think, rather, that He meant it as a way for us to pause and count our blessings. I think He meant it as a way to slow us down so we would have to talk to Him a little more. I think God created snow as His testimony to us that even the smallest creation takes a lot of work and effort, and even though it is too small to be seen (let alone appreciated) by the naked eye, it was worth His time and effort. 

And if a snowflake is worth that kind of work, what does that say about us, his sons and daughters?

That we are worth it.

That we took work. That we still take work. That though we may not see ourselves and our lives as perfectly organized now, there is an order to His plan that makes our lives make sense somehow in the end. That as a single person in a big old world. we add our own unique kind of beauty.

Who am I to wish that away?