The Beauty Of Snow

It finally snowed!

 

And snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed.

 

I got up at 5 to check this morning and was delighted with the sight.

 

I absolutely love the snow.  I love the scrunching crunch of it under your feet as you walk.  I love that it slows the world down and gives us the chance to relax and reflect.  I love how quiet and hushed everything becomes, how everything is muted.  I love that it brings people together to build snowmen and have snowball fights. 

 

But most of all, I love how beautiful the world looks when it is covered in a thick layer of soft snow.

 

Wilhelmina in Ugly Betty says,

 

"Snow is a magical blanket, it hides what's ugly and makes everything beautiful."

 

Snow can make even the ugliest of sights look beautiful.  There is a huge, towering scrap yard a few roads away from my flat, which usually looks pretty monstrous.  But today, even that was transformed into something magical.

 

The Bible describes God's grace as being like snow:

 

 

         "This is God’s Message:
         'If your sins are blood-red,
         they’ll be snow-white.
         If they’re red like crimson,
         they’ll be like wool.'"

 

         [Isaiah 1:18 MSG]

But rather than just covering over the ugliness of life, and hiding it for a while, as snow does, God's grace transforms everything it touches.  So that when it melts away, what is left is more beautiful than before.

Let It Rain

I wouldn't feel very British if I didn't post about the weather and the inordinate amount of rain we have experienced over the last few days.

 

Despite the need for rain for watering the ground and helping the crops to grow, most of us would rather it didn't rain.  Ever.

 

I am happy for it to rain when I am inside and warm and I don't have to go out in it.  But when I have to drive in the rain, or walk in it, I hate it.  I hate that it soaks through your clothes and leaves you feeling damp and soggy.  I hate that it takes ages to warm up and dry out again.  I hate that it makes your hair big and fuzzy.

 

I don't often hear myself saying, Let it rain.

 

But these are the words of one of my favourite songs:

 

        "Let it rain, let it rain.

        Open the floodgates of Heaven.

        I feel the rains of your Love,

        I feel the winds of your Spirit .

        And now the heartbeat of heaven,

        Let us hear.

        Let it rain, let it rain.

        Open the floodgates of Heaven."

 

 

The words of this song are based on God's words in Isaiah:

 

       "You heavens above, rain down righteousness;
       let the clouds shower it down.
       Let the earth open wide,
       let salvation spring up,
       let righteousness grow with it;
       I, the Lord, have created it."

 

      [Isaiah 45:8 NIV]

 

 

Whilst we might not like the rain, it can be a sign that reminds us of God's goodness and grace and mercy and loving-kindness and forgiveness.  Falling on us and soaking us to the bone.

 

That's the kind of rain I want to be drenched in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digital Photos and Forgiveness

I was discussing the way digital cameras and digital photos have altered our photographing experience with a friend earlier.  Not only have they altered the way we view photography, they also affect the way we see ourselves.

 

Gone are the days when we had to develop a whole roll of film just to see how many photos were actually 'usable'.  We had to sift through the blurred images, those with a thumb distorting most of the picture, the photos where the subject is off to the side or at an odd angle.  And the red eyes.

 

These days, we can instantly check our photos and see whether or not they 'measure up'.  If we're not completely satisfied and we don't feel that we look good enough, we can improve them and edit them and digitally manipulate them until we are happy.  And, if the worst comes to the worst, we can hit 'delete' and we can get rid of them. 

 

If there's anything we're not completely happy with, we can simply get rid of it.

 

I sometimes wish it was that easy in life, too.

 

But unfortunately we have to deal with the difficult and messy things in our lives along with the beautiful and air-brushed parts too - we can't simply delete the bits we don't like.

 

We can't.  But God can.

 

The Bible says that,

"He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.  For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.  He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west."

 

[Psalm 103:10-12 NLT]

 

He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

 

We can't 'delete' and remove the things that we don't like from our own lives, but when God looks at our lives, He doesn't keep a record of our wrongs - He doesn't keep all of the 'bad photos'. 

 

Instead, He looks on us with immeasurable and unfailing love and compassion. 

 

Hide and Seek

Whenever I re-watch a film that has a plot twist, or a key turning point in it, I find myself feeling tense, even though I know what's coming.  I hold my breath and curl up my toes, just in case it will help to change the fate of my favourite characters.  I silently - and sometimes not so silently - urge them to turn around, or get to the phone in time, or not take that route home etc., hoping that somehow I will have the power to alter the outcome.

It is the same whenever I read the story of Adam and Eve.

We can't ever begin to imagine what life was like for the first couple before that moment.  To know what it was like to live in complete and perfect relationship with God and with each other.  To be "naked and unashamed." 

What I had always understood about this story, though, was Adam and Eve's reaction: when they heard God later in the day, they hid from Him.

"I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

[Genesis 3:10, NIV]

We can all understand and relate to this desire to hide when we mess up, or make mistakes.  We hide from God, we hide from others and, sometimes, we even hide from ourselves.

But why do we hide?  And why did Adam and Eve hide?  They had spent time getting to know God before the events of Genesis 3, building and developing a relationship with Him and experiencing His love and faithfulness.  They had no reason to doubt or question Him, He had provided good things for them and had given them everything that they needed.

So why did they hide from Him?

John Townsend writes,

"Why didn't they run to God, tell Him what they'd done, and ask Him to help them?  They mistakenly saw God as someone who would hurt and not heal them.  So they hid."

They hid, and we hide, because we're afraid, because we're naked.  We are vulnerable and our 'true' selves are exposed.  We want to cover up and pretend that everything is okay.  So we sew metaphorical fig-leaves together to hide behind, so that no one will know the truth about us. 

And we are scared of people seeing our true selves, because we think that there will be judgment.  From other people, and from God.

But God's love doesn't seek us to judge us.  It searches for us to love us and forgive us and heal us and restore us.  And His love casts out our fear.

"There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love."

[1 John 4:18, MSG]

Instead of hiding when we feel naked and vulnerable and ashamed and afraid, let's seek God's love and grace and forgiveness, for we are sure to find them.