"He made it for us"

It is now the eighth day of March and we awoke to snowflakes again.

The weather is the universal conversation starter and a common note to whine on.

I am the first to start complaining and the last to quit. But my whining sounds strangely hollow and silly after this reminder from a bowl of moss and pebbles :

"Winter is the season I hear people begrudge the most. As a little girl I loved it—snow angels, snow men, snow sculptures; everything snow. We would send “notes” to airplanes by writing gigantic messages with our tracks in the snow-laden back field. Adventures of crafting the pristine snow into works of child art were the epitome of winter joy, the coziness afterwards you could enjoy only if you braved the elements and returned victorious.

But as I’ve grown to realize the inconvenience of it all (you know, the icy roads, shoveling driveways, layering in static-y sweaters. . .) it’s become very easy to complain. I don’t particularly care to get my socks soaked from endless hours of snow-crafting, plus lots of other people seemed bothered by it all, so why don’t I just join in and complain, too?

But I try to resist. I weakly (and pridefully and humbly) resist complaining. Pridefully because it’s my birth season: akin to heritage, you would never hear an American disown that he was partly Irish. Humbly because just look at it: the Creator of the universe made every snowflake and blanketed every woodland scene and city scape, offering you a look at the world in a new way. It’s beautiful, it’s gloriously breath-taking, He made it for us, and I dare not complain.

Will another Winter slip before I take time to appreciate it’s splendor? On my deathbed I don’t want to remember life as standing at the back door complaining about the weather and then turning indoors to breathe stale, dead air. If you knew there was a letter from a  dear friend waiting for you in the mailbox but you had to journey through the snowdrifts to get it, would you venture out into the cold? Well, each and every snowflake is a letter, a teeny-tiny letter of your Savior’s love for you that proclaims His glory and creativity.

So on this quiet winter day, I think I’ll go on another walk with Bently. And I’ll carry him home as we revel in the sparkling, wispy drifts of snow made just for us."

Read the whole thing here.