Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Yay! My favorite time of the year is here! I can finally play Christmas music without guilt or funny looks from others. I am a huge fan of Christmas music. I have a station dedicated to it on Pandora’s Internet music site, and I organized my CDs so all my Christmas music was in one spot and easy to find.

I have tried to analyze why it is that I love this season, and I’m not sure I’ve really gotten to the heart of it all. But I have a fairly decent grip on it.

I love winter. Summer is too hot. Spring is nice when everything greens up. Fall is my favorite. The temperatures are just right and a stroll through falling leaves is fun. Being a big football fan makes fall a happy time too. But winter has a magic to it that grabs me and holds me tight.

I love the mornings when I see snow gently falling outside my window. I know the temperature may be more than nudging toward bitter cold. That means I can break out my favorite clothes as I get ready to head to the office — a nice sweater and boots. I am all about cozy sweaters and curling up with a blanket, a good book and a steaming cup of coffee. (Another reason to like winter and Christmas is the coffee selection. I can’t wait each year for the return of peppermint coffee and chocolate mint truffle creamer!)

Snow is needed in “my” world in the winter. I figure if it is going to be cold, there needs to be a reason and that would be snow. I could do without the ice — I have enough trouble keeping my balance without that added problem. But white, clean snow is just grand. I love watching the fluffy flakes gently float to the ground.

Walking through the snow or watching it through my window is just about the most pleasurable activity I can engage in. I am never satisfied with just a glance; I want to sit and stare, follow individual flakes in their path from sky to earth, concentrate on the swirls of the lovely white stuff moved by the wind.

Whether or not I am in a spiritual mind set when the snow is falling, I nearly always find myself reminded of spiritual lessons hidden in the snow drifts.

Israel’s King David was a man God said followed after His own heart. Pretty heady thing to have said about you, especially by the Creator of the universe. But being a man after God’s own heart didn’t leave David with a special advantage over the rest of us when it came to sin. He still engaged in extracurricular activities that should make us all introspective. Biggest error in judgment — staying home from war. During the time of David’s rule it was unheard of for the king to be safe at home while his troops went out to do his bidding on the battlefield. Yet that is where we find David in 2 Samuel. In fact, the situation was even worse. There was a day when David didn’t even get out of bed until mid afternoon and then, maybe with his brain still foggy from sleep, he wandered to the rooftop to take a look around and observed another man’s wife taking a bath on what should have been a safe rooftop of her own.

Trouble came when he watched her instead of heading back into the house. That failure to stay with his troops, to sleep more than he should have, to continue to take in the beauty of another man’s wife led to sexual sin, lies, murder and eventually the death of a child.

Once his sin was brought to light by the prophet Nathan, David did something many of us now don’t do — he confessed. He saw his sin in the glaring light of truth and confessed. In Psalm 51 David’s song of confession and his quest for reconciliation are found.

“Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse my from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” (verse 2)

“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” (verse 7)

Whiter than snow. Covered in the blackness of sin, and yet we can be whiter than snow.

Have you ever noticed how light the night is with snow on the ground? Even away from city lights, the snow picks up reflected moonlight and darkness is dispelled.

No matter how dark my life may be, I know there is light somewhere. I may not be in the direct beam of the Son. I may just be in the reflective light of another Christian — they are being the moon by reflecting the Son. But there is always light to illuminate my life. And snow reminds me of that, that I am not alone.

Maybe that’s why I like snow.

Have you noticed the dingy look earth takes on as it moves from the brilliant colors of fall to the naked gray of winter? Our world becomes a black and white photo in the winter, devoid of color until the sky opens and shakes the snow on us. And the snow covers the black and gray and adds vivid white. Everything looks clean and fresh.

If I can’t see the colors of life, if my world has become a gray portrayal of how life should be, I can look at the covering of snow, and breath a deep breath of chilled air and be reminded that white is a color, just as black and gray are colors. I know there is probably nasty stuff under the snow, but for a time that nastiness is covered, is clean, is new. And I can appreciate these three colors of winter.

Maybe that’s why I like snow.

Have you observed that after a while the snow takes on the world’s dirt and it isn’t so pretty anymore, at least not in town or on roads. But out away from the busyness of our lives here, there can still be found pure snow not yet disturbed by our human messes.

My life gets too busy. I begin doing things I shouldn’t, failing to do things I should. I may be committing what by our human standards are major sins, or simply falling into the minor ones — a “white” lie here and there to protect someone from something, neglecting to help someone, pay my tithe, read my Bible, spend time with God. All of those things heap “dirt” on the cleansing snow God has covered us in. Might be a thimbleful or a shovelful, maybe even a dump truck load. The point is, it is dirty. And the contrast is plain to see. The black soot of sin begins to cover the white snow of cleansing.

Maybe that’s why I like snow.

Light in the dark. A cleansing covering. A reminder that my sin is not hidden.

I keep getting dirty and I will always need cleansing.

Maybe that’s why I like snow.