Beautiful Snowflake

The closer I draw to the Lord, the more I see His amazing work in my life. He is all around me, in every detail of my life. I see Him in the people, situations and single moments in my life. I"m not sure why I didn't notice the magnitude of His work in my life before. I'm certain that He has always been at work around me. Perhaps I have been motivated by my own selfish desires and too wrapped up in my own agenda to notice Him. The more I seek Him, the more I see Him all around me. To be completely honest, He absolutely astonishes me with His goodness and blessings. I see things now that I never noticed before. I would love to share some of these things with you.

A few weeks ago I met a woman that is truly a servant of God. Lets call her Beth. Beth was a complete stranger when the Lord crossed her path with mine for a brief moment. She has been caring for her disabled teenage son for all of his life. Her son is unable to walk. Beth provides all of his care, including lifting him regularly by herself. She also takes care of her 90 year old grandmother. Beth's grandmother has an arm fracture and is also unable to walk. Beth provides all of her grandmother's care, including lifting her regularly by herself. I could see that Beth was overwhelmed with her responsibilities so I discussed with Beth the possibility of placing her grandmother in an extended care facility. Beth said that she would never let that happen. She said that her grandmother raised her because her alcoholic, drug-addicted mother left her and her father when she was an infant. Beth said that she knows that God will help her care for her family. I admire Beth and her selflessness. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it must be for her to care for her family daily. I'm sure she must make regular sacrifices to provide for them in this way. As I reflect on Beth, I know that I probably wouldn't have given her another thought if not for God's prompting. I find that Beth is frequently on my mind and I pray for her and her family often. I feel like I can see God's good in people now. I was once judgemental and critical of others.



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This weekend we went to the grocery store. I know that this doesn't sound very profound. As we were walking through the parking lot, we couldn't help but notice the huge, fluffy clumps of snow falling from the sky. We have had very little snow so far this winter so we marveled at the beauty of the snowfall. My son and I stopped to catch some of the falling snow on our coat sleeves. As we looked at the clumps of snow, we noticed that each clump was made up of several intricately-detailed snowflakes stuck together. Each snowflake was beautiful but different from the other. I couldn't help but wonder how anyone could look at a snowflake and not know for sure that there is an Awesome Creator. The amazing detail of each snowflake is certainly not something that can happen by chance. Isn't God cool that He makes these beautiful little masterpieces fall all around us every time that it snows? And then I thought about how small each individual flake is and how many, many flakes clumped together can create a complete transformation of the world around us. I compared it to each one of God's children. He makes us all beautiful in our own way. However, we can still feel small and insignificant in this vast and sometimes brutal world around us. When we join in His name with His other servants to become His body of Christ, we can accomplish things that would be otherwise insurmountable.

Yesterday I cleaned the house. I hate cleaning the house. Besides having dental work or a medical procedure, cleaning the house is my least favorite thing to do. Well, anyway, I cleaned the house because it really needed to be done. I decided to listen to my Ipod to make the experience more pleasant. I knew that my Ipod wasn't completely charged. When I turned it on, I noticed that it had slightly less than half of the battery. I started playing my "worship songs" playlist and went about the business of cleaning, expecting my Ipod to die within about an hour. Roughly an hour later, I barely heard the phone ringing. I stopped the music and answered the phone. When I hung up, I looked at my Ipod again. The battery bar was red now and showed pretty much no battery left. Well, I decided to keep listening to my worship music since it hadn't died yet. Our cat followed me around the house and looked at me like I was a freak as I belted out all of my favorite worship songs. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I cleaned at least another two and a half hours and my Ipod never died. Such a God thing. :)

As I was dusting the shelves in our living room, I noticed the two small wooden shoes that my grandparents had carved several years ago. I have dusted the same shoes many times before. As I was listening to my worship music and praising God while I cleaned, a new thought popped into my mind. I thought about the tiny wooden shoes and how we obtained them. I remembered that it was back when I was a freshman in high school and I was dating my husband. I took him to our family Christmas at my grandparents' house. My grandmother was a kind and loving woman that would never want anyone to feel uncomfortable or unloved. My husband (boyfriend at the time) was very surprised when he was presented with the small gift to open. My grandmother had given him the small wooden shoe that my grandfather had carved and she had stained. Not more than a month later, Mike and I broke up. I never really thought about the shoe after that. We of course got back together (two years later). Just a few months after Christmas, my grandmother was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. She died that spring. I still miss her so much even now. I had a very close, special relationship with her and my grandfather. When she died, our family fell apart. She was that special ingredient, the glue that held everything together. As I held the shoes I thought about how she is still so much a part of me today. I wouldn't be who I am now without her and the experiences we shared. Then I wondered when I got the other shoe. I thought I could remember getting it as a birthday present when I was a child. My grandparents always gave us hand-carved pieces as gifts. How awesome to now have these two shoes together as a pair, one appropriately smaller and than the other. They remind me of my husband and I being a pair and walking through life together. I am thankful that the Lord brought these things to my mind again. How awesome He is that He brought these two shoes back together. He knew those many years ago that they would be a pair someday. He also knew how special it would be that my grandmother was such a big part of that story.

I attribute my new found spiritual clarity to being closer to God. He is making me more like Him and therefore I can see Him all around me with renewed clarity. The following scripture says it better than I ever could.

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

God’s Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit

 ⁶ We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. ⁷ No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ However, as it is written:

   “What no eye has seen,
   what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”^[a]—
   the things God has prepared for those who love him—

 ¹⁰ these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

   The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.^{[b] 14} The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵ The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for,

   “Who has known the mind of the Lord
   so as to instruct him?”^[c]
   But we have the mind of Christ.

As I was working on this post, which I had already entitled "Beautiful Snowflake," I opened my Dove chocolate to the following message:


another God thing!

 http://www.biblegateway.com/