The First Snow!

Yesterday afternoon shouts of joy erupted in this house. We had been waiting for weeks for snow to fall. We had watched the snow line creep down the hills around our home, so white, so beautiful.  Even months ago when we were still living in Southern California, snow was the talk of the family. When people would ask our kids if they were excited about moving, they would reply with an affirmative “YES! Because it snows there!”.

My kids have only seen snow once. In what felt like a miraculous, once every 25 years moment, we had snow in Southern California on a new year’s eve in the middle of the night. We woke up the kids so they could see it and experience it. That was two years ago and it didn’t stick around long.

Now we live in a place that will have snow every winter, probably all winter.

Yesterday was the first. The first snowflakes fell, gently, swirling tiny snowflakes. The excitement was loud and wild. We all stood by the window and soon spilled out the sliding glass door to experience it. Snowflakes on the face. There is nothing like it.

It’s true that this will soon be normal and perhaps we will be weary of snow and winter. For now it is new and so magical. I love watching my babies encounter the gloriousness of it.

I sat in the quiet hours this morning, reading, praying, connecting, indeed coming to Jesus in weakness. There is so much that I don’t have nailed down, so much growing that I have to do. As I came to Him this morning, He didn’t want to talk about that. He wanted to tell me about His love.

He spoke to me about how His love will never be exhausted, how I will never come to the end of it. How it will always hold wonder and how it is like a vast expanse of territory that I get to explore. It’s ever present. It’s for now, for this moment and for every moment that will come my way today.

Funny how I come to Him and want to review my failings. He wants to enfold me in joy. He wants me to walk as a care-free child experiencing snow for the first time. Even today.  Even in the grown up world I live in that has real problems, where the world around me holds real suffering and real hard things. Even in this world I can experience His love, I can flesh it out, I can explore it. It never runs dry. It fills me up to overflow so it can spill into the lives of others. It’s so simple. I don’t have to try harder to be better, to be more. All He asks of me is that I surrender to His love. All the other things of growing and becoming are fruit of reveling in His love.

If today finds you tired and weary, I invite you lift your face. Experience the snowflakes of His love. Swirling around, so gentle. Let Him sing over you. He is so for you. He is all around you. He has depths of love that you have never seen.