I glanced out my window to see acres of diamonds gleaming in the sunlight. I grabbed my coat and my camera and ran out into the frigid air.
Two days previous, we had had a terrible ice storm. We had been without power and electricity for 8 hours. I had a Strep infection and had been in bed sick for four days. My kids had the day off school and my husband was out of town on a business trip. As we hunkered down and put on our extra socks, sweatshirts and long underwear, I planned ahead to what we would do if the power didn’t come back on soon. I knew it was likely the power would be off for quite a few hours since everything was coated with 1 inch of ice. Power lines, tree branches, the roads, everything!
As the day progressed, we ate our lunch. Fortunately we had a gas stove so I was able to cook some warm food. Our water wasn’t affected so we had plenty of water too. After lunch, we wrapped up in blankets and studied for my daughter’s Science test. “What is the nervous system?” I asked.
“I can’t remember!” Oh my! Good thing we had all day to work on this!
I had called my husband on my cell phone in the morning to let him know that our power was out. My cell phone battery was nearly dead and I thought I should conserve what little bit was left, so I turned it off. Our house phone was out so all was quiet.
Every so often I glanced at the thermostat to see how cold it was getting. We closed all the curtains and drapes and cooked some beans (for a long time) to add a little heat. We love to camp and we’ve been camping when it was pretty cold. We had piles of blankets so I knew we’d be okay for the night but I wasn’t sure what would happen the next morning if the lights and heat didn’t come back on. Besides, I was still very sick!
Late afternoon, I heard a car drive in and was so relieved to see my husband home early. He was supposed to be home the next day, but he had been very worried about us since my phones were all off, I was sick and the roads were coated with ice!
Needless to say, we all slept better knowing that he was there with us. We piled so many blankets on the beds that we could hardly roll over under the weight of them. But we slept warm and cozy.
The next morning I went to the doctor and got some antibiotics, the electricity turned on before lunch and we came back home to a warm house.
But, back to the acres of diamonds. With my camera in hand, I trudged through the snow in our backyard amazed at the beauty of ice. The field was full of tiny weeds and grasses sticking up through the snow that had all been finely coated with ice. So when the sun hit the snow, it was like a million diamonds across the field.
I tramped to my garden which still had a good share of leftover, overgrown weeds. The ice sculptures on these tiny little seed heads was absolutely breathtaking. Weeds that were ugly, dry, brown stalks had now become works of delicate artistry. Tiny little seeded flower stalks had become perfect round pearls of ice.
As I walked from one end of my garden to the flower bed and all around the yard, I thought of how God takes difficult situations and painful trials and brings good and beautiful things out of them. Yesterday the ice storm had been our enemy – the one that had destroyed our power and heat. Today, it was God’s magic fairyland.
I knew that we were not guaranteed that our heat would stay on since everything still had a coating of ice and the wind was starting to blow, but through it all, I could still see God’s handiwork. Even the weeds in my garden proclaimed God’s handiwork. Who else could make an ice sculpture out of my entire yard in a matter of seconds when the sun came out?
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” Matthew 6:25-29 NKJV
Even though this story happened a number of years ago, every time it snows, I’m reminded anew of God’s amazing artistry and care for us. Take heart, my friend, God loves you more than you can imagine!