Lessons in the snow

When I hear a blizzard is coming, I brace myself.  I feel like everyone around me gets excited, but it’s as though I close my eyes and turn away and tense every muscle in my body.

It’s so cold, so dark.  It stings my skin and it falls and falls and won’t stop.  It’s dangerous and icy and it claims those who are out in it.  I feel closed in.  It seems cruel.

We had one yesterday.  It was Sunday.  Maybe that’s why my heart was in a different place.

It fell and fell and didn’t stop all day.  It piled up and it was cold and stinging.  The wind raged.

I went out in the thick of it for a minute.  My daughter just had to go out and lick the snowflakes out of the air.  I held her little hand and was stunned by the contrast between the two of us.

I was nearly closing my eyes to the wind and the slap of the snow in my face.  I was holding my breath and shivering, willing it to be over.  She threw back her head and laughed.  She jumped into the already climbing drifts with both feet.

I thought about that all day.

Today, the girls and I trekked out into the brilliant white.  We found the places where the snow wasn’t quite so deep.

Everything was so pure, so clean, so perfect.  My feet were quickly numb, but I didn’t feel cold.

Sometimes, I become afraid.  I feel something coming or changes happen in my life that I don’t want.  And often, I fight it.  I turn away and brace myself.  I don’t open my heart readily to all that it can make me become.  I close myself to the purity and the cleansing to be found in the midst of the roaring wind and stinging ice.

I shouldn’t close my eyes.  I should look up, and see the blessings in the midst of the sting and cold.  Blessings blanket us during trials, like snow that covers the ground in renewing white.  I should welcome its coming.  I should look up with open eyes, and in the midst of the icy flakes, see the face of God.

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