"Let it Snow"

Finally, it looks like we could get a good, ground-covering, beautiful snow. I know some of you will not appreciate my enthusiasm, but after all the rain and ice we have had, I say, "Let it snow!" In my opinion snow has a beautiful peace about it. Snow makes a gray, cold winter day look bright. And, have you ever noticed how snow seems to quiet everything?

Someone this week emailed and to ask if I was OK. They explained that I seemed strained and stressed on Sunday. Though I was surprised that this person noticed, I could not deny the truth of their observation. My life is just like yours, some times life casts a winter gray over everything. As I watched a our brother in Christ die at age 43 and hugged his wife as she sobbed that cold winter gray swept over me. I felt it again, as I waited for the surgeon to tell me how my wife's surgery went. You know what I mean, don't you...you've felt the cold, winter gray sweep in with the call of another debt collection agency or with the slamming of a door ending another fight or walking into the house to spend another night alone...It's life...in life there is a season for everything as Ecclesiastes says...why would we expect spring and not winter? Seasons of winter blow through every life, the questions is what do we do when winter comes? Will we simply lay down and freeze? Will we be swallowed up in the gray? What will we do?

Why not pray for snow? If it has to be winter, why not ask for snow?! "Father, for the one who is experiencing a season of cold and gray, I pray for snow. Like snow covering the earth, cover us with your presence. Give eyes to see beauty where it seemed there was none to be found. Like snow's quiet fall, let your peace fall on us. Hush us. In the quiet let us hear you. We understand that in this life you said we would have trouble. We accept that. We stop acting like some how we should be exempt from it. Instead, we look to you and say, if it has to be winter, then, Lord, let it snow!"