SNOW! I don’t even like the sound of the word! All of you folks using your car as your own private Disney sound studio and doing your best Elsa impersonation singing: “Let it go, let it go! Can’t hold it back anymore. Let it go, let it go! Let the storm rage on! The cold never bothered me anyway…” can just knock it off already!
I know, I know, some of you actually like winter and really enjoy the snow… although for the life of me… I can’t figure out why. I’m just a warm weather kind of guy. Give me 85 and sunny every day. I suppose that wasn’t always the case for me. I did like snow once… somewhere between the ages of 12 and 17… but then… yeah… not so much anymore.
It’s a little scary when you realize you are becoming like your older relatives. When I was younger, I would visit Grandpa McKnight in the winter and sweat off about 15 pounds that at the time, I couldn’t afford to lose, because he would have his furnace set on 84 degrees. Now… I’M JUST LIKE GRANDPA cranking up my gas fireplace to somewhere just below the temperature of noon in the Arizona desert and basking in the glory of the radiant heat. Ahhhh!
This past week, I spent about 5 hours in my Polaris Ranger plowing snow. Friday morning, I not only cleared my driveway (for the third time in two days), but I also helped three of my neighbors by clearing theirs as well. Snow shovels and a little single stage snow blower were not going to move the 12 inches of snow we got — we all have rather long driveways too. My Ranger is a tough little machine and it works well for plowing. Three years ago we got about 8 inches of snow and it took my son and I three hours to shovel our driveway — hence the purchase of the Ranger the next year!
Now, everywhere on my property everything is white. The ground, the trees, the lake, the buildings… snow covers everything, and when the sun comes out — WHEW… talk about bright! The dazzling white brightness not only is blinding… it actually hurts your eyes! You can’t look out at the glistening white glow without squinting.
Dazzling white… blindingly white… purely white… that is what I picture in my mind when I read… “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” Isaiah 1:18 NIV Is there a bigger contrast between scarlet and white? I don’t think so. As I look out over the blazingly pure white snow… I am reminded that because of Jesus… my sins… which should stain my soul like scarlet dye are covered over by Christ’s atonement; and my heart is washed as clean as fresh fallen snow.
All glory and praise to Jesus our loving Savior! So, while I would be ok if I don’t have to plow any more snow this winter… I am grateful for the lesson of the snow. The reminder of Jesus moving into my life and discarding the old… and making me a new creation. And I can deal with the snow a bit longer, because in just two weeks, I will be in Florida for a week… come on 85…. Praying for 85!
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