without ink

I didn’t realize it was snowing this morning until I walked outside. I was actually glad to see a fresh couple inches on the ground.  The stale snow had since become compact and treacherous being trampled and refrozen into a layer of ice across our parking lot. The flakes were not big this morning but were falling quickly and with volume! A wintry breeze dancing across the fallen snow picked up resting flakes and mixed them with those already suspended in the air before tickling my face, welcoming me outside.  Finding myself transported into what seemed a winter wonderland, my mind was soon also carried away.  I find the most breathtaking aspect of a snowfall to be the stillness that is ushered in at the cue of the falling flakes. Striving and bustling pause and creation momentarily holds it breath, transfixed by the newness that descends upon the earth.  It’s as if each delicate flake delivers an ounce of peace to a fallen and broken world, allowing whomever chooses, to escape oneself and get caught up in something….bigger. 

A reminder of our relative insignificance.

A reminder of the connection we have to the earth as humans.

A reminder of an insuppressible desire to have meaning beyond waking up every morning and going to bed at night.

There is hardly another image I can think of that more accurately represents purity.  The whiteness of my surroundings is irreproducible.  It is breathtaking and pristine and, for a little while, unblemished.  Ugliness is concealed.  The day is new…. And so are his mercies as he blankets the filth of yesterday. 

The beauty of a snowy landscape is only a fringe of his robe.  We surely cannot handle the perfection and purity that he desires to give to us.  As we are blinded as the sun reflects off a fresh snowfall, surely we are unable to handle the perfection and purity that he promises to give us as he washes us “whiter than the snow.” I look once more out the window sighing and thanking the illustrator for another portrait of his great love for us.