They called for snow and behold, it came! As skeptical as I was before it got here, I am so glad to see it in a vast amount. With children snuggled up in The Household Regent's Chair watching a movie (and opining on how it DID NOT match the book) I donned my boots and went outside.
Near SILENCE.
WHITE.
Everything COVERED.
I shoveled the walk. With each step the fog that has been in my head for days slowly lifted. By the time I reached the street, my heart was near to bursting with happiness.
I am out in the snow.
It is quiet and dark.
My 3 day headache is GONE.
I headed up the street to go check on the main road and clear off the van. Then I remembered...walking in snow is good exercise.
More SMILES.
I feel ALIVE.
Wow! I didn't really think we would get this much snow. A man in a truck drives down into our neighborhood. He must have gone around the circle looking for stuck drivers to help. I was walking towards the main road as he came back up the hill and asked if I was ok. "Roads are slick." he said. "No, the main road isn't plowed." when I asked about it and thanked him for his concern.
Turning around I headed home, smiling as I remembered the joy of retracing steps taken in the snow as a child. That led to more memories of walking with my dad and the dog on the lake, stepping in his steps, watching the dog stick her nose in the snow following a mouse. We could see the tiny tracks that led to a hole and laughed as the dog looked at us with a white face asking "Where is it?"
"Here's where I lost my glasses last summer while fishing." Dad said as we stood over the spot. The next summer he wore a bobber on his old pair of glasses so as to not lose another pair to the lake. He came home once or twice with a wet boot in the winter, having stepped on a thin spot of ice, downplaying the event but now that I look back, I think he may have had a couple close calls of which he never told us the exact details.
This brings to mind the first time he cleared the ice so Mom could teach me to skate. We had a little metal folding chair that I would push as I went along. I remember the ice on our lake being very smooth compared to what seemed like huge ripples on my grandparent's lake.
Oh how the memories flood back, one after another.
The magnificent colour and design of the ice.
Temperature and pressure changes singing like a symphony, echoing like thunder.
Aeons ago, a different time and place...
Which brings me to a thought I had as I neared the house.
White snow. CLEAN.
My sins which are many, were scarlet but are now WHITER THAN SNOW!
That is what Jesus did for me.
He forgave my sin and He cleansed my soul!
And I am ever thankful.
