All About Him

And Jesus answered and said unto her, 

Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: 

But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, 

which shall not be taken away from her.

Luke 10:41-42

I caught myself thinking yesterday.

I know.  What a statement.  I suppose it implies that there are times I am NOT thinking.  Well, yes, as a matter of fact, there are.  So maybe what I could have said is I caught myself NOT thinking yesterday.  Either one works.  And each speaks to a new attitude, a new way of looking at things.

Here's the backstory.

We have recently moved to a much colder climate than we are used to.  Complete with feet of snow and below-zero temperatures.  It is taking some getting used to - I have taught my daughter to wrap a winter scarf around her neck, nose, and mouth so that she doesn't catch her breath in wind-chilly gusts of cold air.  We are getting accustomed to layering our clothes and bringing our street shoes so we can wear the snow-and-ice-gripping snow boots on snow-packed sidewalks and slushy parking lots.  We keep our personal blankets on the sofa so we can snuggle in during movie and TV time.  I have added a new skillset to my teach-an-old-dog-new-tricks repertoire - I know how to start and run a snowblower, and I've learned how to throw snow up on four- and five-foot stacks using a push-and-whoosh shoveling style.

I think the snow started toward the end of November.  Here it is March, and between the lake-effect, the lake-enhanced, the regular snow falls, and the colder-than-average temperatures, we still have at least three to four feet of snow filling our yard, and we have neighborhood snow banks that top out above roof level.

It's a lot of snow.

I am wishing for spring weather.  I am wanting to see some greenery, some color.  Less white and gray, more pink and yellow.  I remember last year, about this time, I took my camera out and about in the neighborhood (yes, farther south from where we are..), and I caught some of nature's signs of upcoming warmer weather.  I called it bud hunting.

So, since this location isn't showing any signs of spring, yet, I decided I would bud-hunt through my iphoto files, and begin posting pictures from prior years.

And here's the aha moment.

It was snowing when I decided it would be a good idea to post those memories.  Big, beautiful flakes of snow falling into the backyard, falling on the driveway, clinging to the trees.  I could see them gather, airy and light on the porch handrail, on the flag-holder, covering the old snow left by plows, filling in footprints.  In the beginning of the season, when we first moved here, I loved to watch this kind of snow swirl and drift.  Now, not so much.

What changed?

The only thing I can come up with is time and habit.  I've grown used to snow, and it's overstayed its welcome.

Really?

Am I so looking forward to something new and different, that I am neglecting to see the beauty of now?

I've been reading from Beth Moore's bible study:  Jesus. The One and Only.  Years ago, Jesus had dinner at the home of Martha and Mary.  Martha opened her home, but Mary opened her heart.  Each made a choice.  But it wasn't between right and wrong choices, it was between levels of good choices, levels of right choices.  It is so easy for me to think of my choices in black and white - only one is right.  I don't like snow.

But I do.  I just don't feel like loving it right now, because I SO want to see and be in warmer weather.  But the choice isn't between snow and warm weather.  I honestly like them both.  The real choice is in my attitude.  How will I choose to feel about the snow while I'm looking forward to the spring?  Hmmm....

In this study, Beth shows that between Martha and Mary, the choice was between good and best...  But Beth's final words in the chapter had me thinking about my snow attitude...

Shall we allow good to become the enemy of our best?  The choice is ours.

Oh God,

Help me to see the forest for the trees.

Help me to recognize the good and the good, and to realize I don't have to choose between them.  Help me to glorify you and your creation - all of it!

Thank you for snow.  

And Spring.

Thank you especially, especially for Jesus, 

Because in the end, it really is all about Him.

Linking with Naomi, and Kelly 

Snow - Metaphor

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, 

whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, 

whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. 

And the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:8-9

We knew, when my husband accepted this posting, that we might be in for some cold weather and snow.  Yup.  Halfway through February and the snow totals since October have topped the 90inch mark.  Thankfully not all at once, right?  At the same time, we are about to experience daytime high temperatures that won't crack zero.  Yes, negatives will be our highs.  I smile when I hear the newscasters explain the temperature in thermometer degrees and wind chill.  Those negatives we're expecting by this weekend?  Thermometer degrees.  Wind chill will be colder.  Much colder.

So, having set the stage... I just came back in after shoveling.  Again.  We only got a couple of inches of snow overnight, but when the snowplow runs by, it leaves a mound of slushy, icy, snowy mix at the foot of the driveway.  Knowing the cold that's coming, I thought it a good idea to get rid of that mound while the shovel could still get it.  By tomorrow morning it will be solid ice.  And tomorrow my husband gets home from a month-long training exercise, so I want everything to be, you know, perfect.  Perfect is not driving over an ice mogul.

And therein, lies this post.  Imagine.  I am out in the dusk of morning shoveling snow for the umpteenth time this winter.  I know it could be worse.  I could be in Boston where the snow totals for the winter are less, but the amount they're getting each day is catching them up quickly.  I could be in a more urban setting where I have to dig my car out of snow every day.  So I am, first and foremost, thankful.  I am thankful that I have the get-up-and-go to do what needs to be done.  I am thankful for warm clothes and a warm place to go when I'm done.  I am thankful for the beauty of the white blanket.

But it also causes me to think.  Call it cheesy - but I think of this snow and this shoveling as a metaphor for my Christian life.  It is cheesy; in an I'm-laughing-at-myself-come-along-on-the-journey kind of way, but bear with me.  This kind of thinking gets me through my morning chore, maybe it'll get you through something....

First - I feel like I'm shoveling the same stuff over and over.  The snowpiles by the side of the drive, by the sidewalk, by my porch and patio, by the road are getting deep.  I watch a shovel-ful of white tumble and roll from the top and sides of these winter hills.  Right back to the place I need it the least.  Isn't that what happens to us sometimes?  Don't our best intentions, our well-meaning, well-organized, well-laid-out lives sometimes come tumbling down.  Sometimes the disappointment of goals not met snowballs right to our feet.

So, what to do.  I find I have to work a little harder - take the shovel a little further - find a pile a little lower.  See, it doesn't stop me from doing what needs to be done, I just have to take a different way.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

1 Corinthians 13:11 (NIV)

Here I am, still shoveling, still thinking about this Christian life, and the snow is starting to fall more heavily.  It's covering all of my good work, the driveway is covered with a gauzy film of white.  But, I think, the biggest task is completed.  The good work is at least begun.   I took the snowplow leavings from the end of the driveway and deposited them across the road, on top of the much-lower-than-mine snow banks.  

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:4-6 (NIV)

I really want to feel a sense of accomplishment.  A sense of pride.  So here's the biggest thought I have.  What if the sun came out?  What if it lit up the sky and warmed the air?  What if it came out long enough for some of these snowbanks to melt?  

I have come into the world as a light, 

so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

John 12:46 (NIV)

Wouldn't you know, I walked back into the house feeling pretty good about the last hour.  Cheesy as it may seem, I chose joy because I chose him.  You know, I really do try to keep my mind, my thoughts on him.

PS  Ok, so what I forgot to say when I walked back in the house this morning, was that while I was changing out of my shoveling clothes, the snow started coming down in that inch-an-hour-lake-effect way that it can.  By the time my daughter and I left for work, there was another two inches on the driveway and another you-know-what hump at the road.  I have since come home and shoveled again, thinking about this post and my 'lessons' from the snow.  All clear, salted (and oh! that's another thing - kind of like light....get it?  Salt and light?)  AND it's snowing again!  If I didn't know before (and I did, but that's a whole 'nother bunch of stories), I would certainly recognize that God has a GREAT sense of humor!  So, just to make sure it's clear - the 'cheesy' wasn't used in disrespect - it was my weird-sense-of-humor-laughing-at-myself-because-I-keep-seeing-relationship-in-EVERYTHING!  I honestly hope y'all are having fun along with me!

Linking with Lyl on Thought Provoking Thursday

The Many Faces of Snow

I woke to snow falling this morning.  Again.  Flakes were almost indiscernible in the gray before light, calling to mind a mist or fog.  Tiny drops falling fast and straight.  Tiny snow, barely knitting together a blanket to cover the old, ice-capped drifts, the old accumulation.  But as the grayness slid to morning, the snow mist changed.  From fast falling to gentle swirling, from drops to flakes,  And the blanket grew deeper, covering more, softening edges and muffling the world.

Last week, there were domed caps of ice, like skullcaps, on the hills and mounds outside my window.  I have never lived in a place that stays frozen for so long, where the snow doesn’t melt between fallings. 

Yesterday was the coldest day of the year, so far.  New snow had fallen during the darkness of night and in the frigid sunlight, it lay like a diamond veil over the landscape.  An unsullied bride, a sparkling treasure, crisp and white and clean.

Today, more snow.  And wind.  Arctic temperatures, the news reports. 

There is beauty in this landscape.  Harsh and tender.  My thoughts wander from what I see to what is, from literal to figurative.  I don’t love the snow, but I am fascinated by what I learn from it.

Snow covers.  It makes new.  It softens rough edges.  It redeems the brown landscape of winter, it awakens beauty.  I understand this.  Jesus Christ is snow.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:

The old has gone, the new is here!

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)

Wind sculpts.  Like a potter with clay.  It drives the snow into drifts, deep places and shelters.  It tears the snow from the ground, leaving ragged scars of dirt and broken grass.  It creates swirled landscapes of ridges and dunes, terrible and beautiful.  I understand this, too.  God is wind.

Yet you, Lord, are our Father.

We are the clay, you are the potter;

we are all the work of your hand.

Isaiah 64:8 (NIV)

I woke to snow falling this morning.  Again.  It is well with my soul.

Linking with Naomi and Kelly, and Jen

Old Snow

The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: 
his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
Psalm 55:21



Old snow still lays white

Crusted in ice yet hollow

Treacherous stepping


Thinking about how things aren't always as they seem.  It's easy to see it in the physical world around me.  The snow, the ice, beauty and the beast.  Not always so easy to see it in the emotional and relational world.  But, I always find God in the mix.  Our good God.  Our help.  The next verse in the psalm -- the next thought, the next drawing of breath...

Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: 
he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.

Amen, right?


Linking with Barbie, and Sandy

God's Breath

The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen. 

Job 37:10 

It snowed again, the deepest snow we’ve had so far this year.  We watched it from our kitchen window, watched it fall like rain, wet and heavy.  We could see the trees bending beneath the weight of it – branches curving away from the trunk toward the ground – great glistening hoops of black and white.

News stations were full of broadcasts about the winter storm, about the winter weather that arrived after spring.  Newscasters pointed their way through maps that showed its size that showed the way it stretched and swirled across the land.  Predictions of depth and breadth transformed to pink and white bands on the screen.  Photos sent by viewers paraded.  Cameras rolled down highways and byways to record the roads, the drives, the get-arounds.

My phone buzzed.  It was a text photo.  From my sister in Illinois.  A good six-inches of snow was perched on the wrought iron rails of her back deck.  At least a foot lay over the patio table. It was a muted-gray world.  Like mine.  From 860 miles away – we were sharing the same storm.

It’s been a few years since my husband was deployed.  He was literally half a world away.  But every day, we managed to contact each other – by email, Skype video, or Skype instant message (technology is an amazing thing…).  Every day, he told me he loved me.  Every day, I told him I loved him.  Beside the physical distance, our messages were often separated by distance in hours.  His day started eight and nine hours before mine.  One day, he wrote something that I will never forget.  He told me that I would see his sun…. Half a world away and we were sharing the sun – It was like he’d given me a gift. He’d given me the gift of being near, of feeling his presence throughout the day, as long as the sun was in the sky… And then the moon.  And the stars.  In that moment, I realized that we weren’t so much separated as joined.  Joined by the things we shared.  What a precious gift.

Today, the snow is mostly melted where I live.  I am tired of the snow.  I am tired of the cold.  I crave the warm-weather days of spring and summer.  I look forward to trees with leaves, and green grass, and flowers.  I love flowers.  But, if snow and rain is what we get, it’s ok.  We shared – my sister and me. The breath of God fell on us both – at the same time.  It felt like family.

Thank you, God, for common experiences. Thank you for family.

The Coming of Robins

We are about to lose Winter for the year  

Days of February have meandered by 

Cloudy, rainy, sunny by turn

March is coming  

Yet, snow falls 

Blanket-deep 

Insinuating itself into the bare places

Transforming the land

Peaceful snow quilt

This comforter

Muffling sound and insulating cold

The sun will rise 

Ice will melt

Droplets will fall from ice-shrouded branches

And robins will drink

Selah