Let it Snow!

This was the best Christmas ever!  And if the family, fellowship, gifts, food, and fun wasn’t enough God blessed us with a measurable snowfall all day Sunday.  The Barnes’ estate looked beautiful dressed in a fresh blanket of snow white. Of course, we took all the pictures…Amanda, I, my nephew and niece, their sweet babies…and we can’t forget Cooper, our dog. This morning I took Cooper for his morning walk and we took a different route. We walked through the snow back in the woods. The woods, with it’s carpet of white, lumps of snow hanging to all the branches overhead, and the sprinkle of snow that falls from the heavens as the wind blows is a perfect picture only our Creator can paint.
As we walked peacefully, engulfed in white I couldn’t help but be reminded again about the season we are celebrating. An innocence baby being born eventually shedding his blood for us so that we can become as white as snow…”Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Isaiah 1:15. There is a divine peace that comes with the landscape being draped in white. It is as if all of nature stands still. Everything as far as the eye can see is clean, bright, and untouched. There is a pureness, an innocence that is painted with a big brush dipped in white.
This is how we become in baptism. Because of the sacrifice of our Lord, are sins are wiped clean. Our hearts become that landscape that is bathed in white. We are wiped clean, fresh, pure, and innocent. And with that there in a scripture that tells us that he provides us a “storehouse of the snow”, God used hail to help Joshua and the Israelites win a battle (see Joshua 10:11). God has reserved the storehouses of snow and hail for us in times of trouble. “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?” Job 38:22. God has control of all the forces of nature and uses them for the good of his people. Could it be that he used this blanket of snow to give everyone just one more day of peace…one more day to reflect on the true meaning of this holiday…to show his power and majesty yet again?  Could it be, at least here in the south, the Lord was giving us one more blessing of joy…”icing on the cake”?  
Well. for me, the snow brought me joy, peace, thankfulness and a lap full of memories with my nephew and his family. For me, more “icing on the cake” of this holiday season…heaps of blessings to remind me the breathe and depth of the love my Savior has for me. Freedom from sin, being washed as white as snow and a storehouse of snow in times of trouble…redemption, peace, protection, and love...what more do we need!?
“God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow, ”Fall on the earth,” so that all men he has made may know his work, he stops every man from his labor. Job 37:5-7

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