Memories and Snow

          My grandparents ordered special commentaries frequently to augment their preparation for teaching their adult Sunday School classes at Masham Baptist Church. Grandma, Gladys Rainey Smith, vigilantly insured those she loved knew about the Lord. She prayed for each family member and neighbor to enter a relationship with Him.

          Knowing I loved stories, my maternal grandma ordered weekly “take-home” papers to read to me. Our little church did not give out this specific type of extensional reading for children.

          When I was around four or five, one winter week, the take-home paper contained an article about snow. I did not like any genre other than fiction or Bible stories read to me.*  Yet this article about the beauty of a snowfall blanketing a landscape captured interest because of my love of snow as a preschooler.

Marred Snow from last week

          The writer mentioned how muddy footprints by animals or humans irrevocably scar the beauty of the snow-packed scene. Immediately, the children’s author shifted to discussing sin. I heard that word read from the Bible and sang it in songs I easily memorized, but it was meaningless to me. The little article pointed out how sin mars our lives much like lovely, snowy scenery is blemished.

       It would be several years before I sensed the Holy Spirit urging me to respond to the gift of God, seeking forgiveness for my sins. Yet that little nonfiction piece in a children’s weekly take-home paper made me aware that those unkind actions marred my own life just as the newly-fallen snow was flawed inevitably. I gained a small understanding of what it means to be a sinner.

Sometimes the excuse is given, "It is only a little
sin." The Bible says, "All have  sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God."

         Over the years, as I have looked at the fresh snow on a lawn and as I have walked through the pastures, this memory of the lesson about sin from snow vividly returns to my mind. How important it is for each human to recognize we are dead in our sins and need a Savior!

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).

Ephesians 2:4-5

This photo taken of snow reminded me of this from David's
psalm of repentance - Psalm 51:7  Purge me with hyssop,  
and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter 
than snow.
Note: Hyssop - an herb of the mint family; used for cleaning and as a medicine
 in ancient Israel.

* (Mother tried to read poetry to me as a preschooler. If I got to choose, poetry, like Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, received a “thumbs down” from me. Grandma loved nonfiction – books about tornadoes, dinosaurs, etc. – another “thumbs down” from me.)