Submitted by Pastor Donna Clark Fuller,

Rock Port & Watson United Methodist Churches

As I am writing this, I am looking outside at the snow that fell last Friday night and Saturday. It was a heavy, wet snow that was a lot more than we had expected and while some of it has melted, we are expecting more tonight. We don’t know how much we will get. The weather reporters have a hard job in this part of the world and the fact that they get it right so much of the time is a credit to their knowledge and abilities.

But of course, it is God who is really in control, though we may make it easier or harder on ourselves if we don’t respect what can happen. Too often we also tend to look at weather only in terms of our immediate needs. It either fits in with our plans or it is an inconvenience.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1

How much is said in those few lines. How much are we still ignorant about the earth, much less the heavens that God created. Even our own bodies are marvels of creation that we only understand in part. And if we go through our lives seeing only that which affects us right now, we limit our view of creation, and in so doing, we limit our understanding of our Creator.

Children are often more aware of creation than we are, and often more appreciative. Most children love snow, but few adults love it. Children will find the joy of playing in snow, while adults see only the difficulties of driving in it, the work of shoveling it, and the mud it leaves behind when it melts. But if we look at snow with a child’s eyes, we can see the beauty it in as well. Look at the crystals of snow when the sun shines on them. They become prisms that reflect all the colors of the rainbow. When we look at those lights, we just might have get a glimpse of understanding that our Creator knows, far better than we do, the things we need throughout our lives. We need the snow to provide moisture to the ground, to help things grow in the spring, to help feed us through the year.

When we look at the beauty of snow, we might just sense the joy that God gives us with every storm, with every season, with every light that shines on us. We might just sense how great and complex is the creation we live in, and how great is our God. I invite you to stop sometimes this season of winter and look at the snow with the eyes of a child, with the eyes of a child of God.