As I write, a heavy snow is falling outside my windows, reminding me of winters past.
As a little girl growing up in the country (now the Chicago suburbs), a fresh snowfall was an invitation to come out and play. We had snowball fights, built snow forts, rolled snowmen, and deposited snowballs in a nearby creek where we watched them melt in the icy water.
We made snow-nests in a nearby field, then lay back comfortably to catch snowflakes on our tongues. If we were very quiet, we could even hear them land. The cold was never a problem, and we didn’t mind boots with snow packed around our ankles, or hands wet from soggy mittens.
I remember being so excited to play in the snow after school that I ran out with my dress still on, (in the ‘50’s, girls wore dresses), playing until the skirt became as soaked as Mom’s dish rag but not minding one bit. When she would ring the cowbell to call us home for dinner, we’d groan in disappointment that our snow-playtime had ended.
These days I don’t think about snow like that, because I’m in a different season: not a weather-season, but a life-season. Each weather-season has its purposes, and though I love to watch the snow fall, playing in it for hours has lost its appeal. I do appreciate today’s beautiful storm but only because I’m seeing it with different eyes.
The same can be said of life-seasons. God hopes we’ll see them with eyes appropriate to each one, never considering the spring of childhood or summer of young adulthood as better than the autumn and winter seasons of older ages. He has affixed positives to every season, and if we look with the right eyes, we’ll see them.
Today, if I lift heavy rolled balls of snow in an effort to build a big snowman, my back will complain about it the next day. But if I walk Jack the dog with the proper coat and boots on, we can both enjoy the winter snow.
Sometimes it’s difficult to accept the season we’re in. Children long to get older. Teens reach for adulthood. Older folks wish they were young again. But these off-center views are simply a function of looking with the wrong eyes.
As we age, physical limitations increase, but if we ask God to highlight the positives of whichever season we’re in, he will show us. And though winter snows can be hazardous, each individual snowflake remains one of God’s great marvels, unique in its created, symmetrical design.
And if we stop long enough to appreciate that, we might even hear them land.
“God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth….’ ” (Job 37:6-7)
Praising and Praying with Mary
- Please pray for little Anders who is now over 5 pounds but has had a couple of set-backs. Pray for wisdom for the doctors as they make decisions.
- I’m thankful still to be feeling good, this week on a getaway to Florida with Bervin.