Snow of 2016

As all of you might know I love a little snow! I drive my family crazy (and thank you Daddy for always playing along with me:) watching and reporting the weather if it forecasts any precip and temps anywhere around 35 degrees....I pray and wish for snow! And as the northeast was bracing for blizzard conditions God blessed us with a steady but light snowfall during the early morning hours of Saturday and into Saturday around lunch.  The Barnes’ estate looked beautiful dressed in a fresh blanket of snow white. Of course, we took pictures…Russell and I,  at 4 a.m. hanging out the front door, not wanting to disturb the beautiful white flakes that covered our front deck. And as the sun started to rise I couldn't keep myself from looking out the windows. The property and the trees, 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 I looking out the window everything was still and white and I thought about this verse …"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 is 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…maybe to "blanket" us, fill our storehouse up with strength for the year ahead…to show his power and majesty yet again?  Could it be, knowing us his children, that he knows we need to be restored to that white pureness of heart and then given a day of peace so that we can "store" up strength in him for the future?  

Well for me, the snow did bring me peace, joy, thankfulness and strength as it reminded me of his promises for the year ahead for me and my family…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