Talk About A Snow Job

I woke up to a soft blanket of glittery white covering everything in sight. . . Nashville's most beautiful snowfall in years. I immediately took Chopper outside, who used his snout like a snowplow to eat his way through the yard. I found an undisturbed place on the deck where I could gather up the cleanest snow, free of dirt and twigs (or worse), to make my favorite treat: snow ice cream. It all brought back so many warm memories of cold winter days from my youth.

Where my sisters and I grew up in West Texas, the landscape was as flat as a pancake. Whenever it snowed, we had to go to the closest overpass just to find a slope steep enough for us to sled. But with no real hills for sledding, nobody had a real sled either. So the older neighborhood boys improvised one by tying a rope to their Jeep and dragging us around on a trash can lid. . . through traffic! Why we didn't get flattened dead like roadrunners I'll never know. I guess the boys—and us girls too—thought because we were young, we were also invincible. Our parents sure didn’t know about our death-defying adventures. To cover up the truth (and to keep from getting grounded) we told them we were out building snowmen for kids who couldn’t go outside because they were too sickly. Talk about a snow job.

Other times my sisters, my friends and I would hide in the bushes and throw snowballs at passing cars in hopes that they would chase us. As little girls we knew if a car actually stopped, all we had to do was start crying and they wouldn’t tell on us. Talk about a snow job.

The best time for our snowball fights was right after the holidays. All the old Christmas trees were left in the alleys. We would gather up as many as we could find to build forts, using them as our shields. It was all-out war. If anyone asked what we were doing with the trees we would say we were stacking them up to help the trash man. Oh boy, talk about a snow job.

As kids, we got away with quite a few snow jobs. All in good fun, or so we told ourselves. Today I see it more from a heavenly perspective: the innocence of youth as fresh as newly fallen snow, each of us as unique as snowflakes, all drifting our own way in and through the storms. . . those that came and those still yet to come. Like a pure white blanket, Jesus covers our dirt-filled imperfections until we're sparkly clean and all the more beautiful to view. Talk about a snow job! How grateful I am for a forgiving snowfall, grateful for how it covers everything (past, present and future), and most grateful to the One who sends it.