This morning, big fluffy snowflakes were gently falling like floating white feathers from a cloudy, pale gray sky.  Everything seemed quiet and still as the snowflakes made their decent from the heavens above.  After spending days cooped up inside, I longed to emerge from seclusion beyond the heavy doors and stretch my arms up high to feel the cleansing white flakes.  As I watched from my living room windows, I noticed how the snowflakes were such a beautiful bright white, and I was reminded of the following verses:

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow."  - Psalm 51:1-7

 When I searched the word "snow" in my Bible concordance, I was interested to see how many times God used snow to describe the purest color of white.  I've learned over and over again that God has put His fingerprints all over His creation in Nature; it is simply FULL of lessons to be learned, that is if we take the time to notice and give Him the glory.

I was reading recently about how snowflakes are formed.  Like rain, they are formed in clouds.  But unlike rain, in freezing temperatures, water droplets in clouds freeze into tiny intricate ice crystals with six sides.  These hexagonal ice crystals are the building blocks of snowflakes.  There are seven different ice crystal shapes, but remarkably, they are ALL six-sided.  Now, each ice crystal is surrounded by water vapor in the cloud.  The tiny water vapor droplets freeze, and attach to one of the ice crystal's six sides.  That makes the ice crystal grow branches off of it's six sides, and by this amazing process you have the remarkable creation of a breathtakingly perfect and pure white snowflake.

When I think of the beginnings of a snowflake, when it is still a snow crystal, while I'm sure it's very pretty, I can't help but think of how after God is done building and adding onto it, how much more beautiful and full of splendor it becomes.  Just like us, as the verse states above, even from before birth and at birth, we are sinful, cute, but sinful.  And as we journey through this life, our Creator is carefully creating and adding more crystal branches to us making us more into His glorious and beautiful image, if we allow.  All until the day we are formed perfectly and uniquely into His magnificant image.  As you probably already know, every single snowflake that falls from the sky amazingly is unique.  And as you probably know, snow is not actually white, it's the reflection of the light which makes it appear pure white.  Just like us, it's His reflection in us which makes us perfectly pure.

This entry will be the first in a series that I plan on doing as I begin putting together our study on snowflakes.  We will probably complete most of it in January, however if we feel motivated to take a break from our Christmas school, then we'll hop on into the study a little earlier.  In the meantime, below is a link to a website with a snowflake primer, a good starting point for study.

A Snowflake Primer