Grace in the Snow

What is your first reaction when you see the snow?

Flake on large flake piling up on branches. Grass and twig bending low. The dirt and the dark covered up. Rough places leveled. Details of the landscape removed till all is a blanket of white with only hints of gray where the almost shadow of the tree sheers the brightness off the white.

And where the road begins its downward slope, the snow blends road and shoulder to one shade of pale shadow, bringing a muted relief to the starkness of the new cover.

I sit here looking out the window as it comes down furiously outside, and I can hear several of my friends' comments.

But back to the original question: what is your first reaction?

Do you despair? Because you know your morning commute just doubled in time. Do you complain? Because you know that the shovel is still buried, not in the snow outside, but in the back of the garage. Do you fuss? Because you know this means snow work when you do get home tonight.

Maybe you choose a stoic response because there isn't much you can do about it. Or maybe you just resign yourself to the fact that this is where you live now but wait till retirement when the plan is to hightail it out of town to warmer, sunnier places.

Or may, just maybe, you are a crazy as I am, and you smile to see those flakes piling up! Your heart does a happy dance to see the brightness of the beauty right before you. Maybe, just maybe, you are as crazy as I am, and rather than relocating to a sunshine state, you set your sights further north and buy a piece of property in the upper peninsula of Michigan where they still get some real snow!

Or maybe, just maybe, you rejoice with me at the wonderful reminder of the effect that the Lord can have on your sins. You rejoice at the beautiful metaphor in Isaiah 1:18, "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as snow", which is being so vividly illustrated right outside your window.

I know how I have answered that question, but how about you? How do you respond when you wake up and 'mother' has shaken her snowy down comforter on all that you can see? There is grace here not to be missed. It's grace, it all grace, it's all about His purity for our poverty.

Every twig and every branch in your life is covered. Every mud puddle that grows bigger every time you throw mud on someone else's reputation is filled. Every synapse that has the shadow of sin on it is gone--it's all grace.

There is grace in knowing that the snow kills the mosquitos--mostly--and the ticks--hopefully! But he doesn't merely cover our dark and our dirt. He doesn't only level our rough places. He doesn't just hide the details on the landscape of our poor choices. No, He changes our heart's desires, He takes out the dirt and the dark in those hidden recesses of the heart.

But let's face it: snow is cold and blows into unprotected cracks and corners. I wonder if sometimes grace can feel like too cold a wind blowing through those tattered and filthy rags that Isaiah mentions in chapter 64 verse 6: "all our righteousness is as filthy rags." We don't want to give them up lest we lose what little self-generated warmth we think they provide.

As a stark contrast to the pristine, we are afraid that grace may make our every sin and stain stand in naked relief against His holiness. We are afraid of grace stripping us down to the heart level.

And grace, rightly understood, does that. But it is at that level that we need His grace. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8) Grace is not only a cover over our garbage, it is also a cleaner of the garbage.

He used His crimson on the cross to create a pure white canvas so His purity can reflect off our dedicated-to-Him hearts and lives.

And when we have tasted, truly and deeply, of that grace that doesn't leave us in the mud puddle of our own making, eating homemade pies in an effort to fill our aching hunger for something more, then we will gladly dance in the snow. Then we will delight in the beauty of holiness. We will fall on our backs and make snow angels that are visible from above. We are joyfully flailing our arms making wings for those angels as a means of expressing our gratitude, sending our praise upward.

The blanket of snow invites us to be children again, who don't feel the cold while they are playing. Grace invites us to let Him bend and cover, level and remove all that does not glorify Him.

We will count ourselves blessed to be wrapped in that Comforter Who blasts us during that magnificent blizzard. It's grace, it's all grace.

"Let it snow, Lord!"