Snow Roses

The snow and ice on my roses this morning… caused me to think.

…The rose’s delicate petals weren’t created to bloom in the winter.

Just as humanity was never originally created to experience death. I found my pink blossoms covered in ice and snow this morning.

In the aftermath of a record breaking early snow storm, yet miraculously not wilted. It was almost as if their beauty was artfully encapsulated, protected and preserved to somehow survive what it was never made to.

Then it hit me… it’s a picture reminder of who we are. Humanity. not created to experience a winter like death or the icy pain that comes with it. Death enters our lives like a storm that covers us. Our ice encrusted hearts struggle with the unexpected… but God promises never to leave us and…. He faithfully equips us moment by moment. It isn’t anything we can do for ourselves. In that moment we lose someone, life seems frozen. Warmth is drained from us and we are soon covered, like my rosebuds, in death’s wintery blanket. But underneath beats a beautiful, live heart. Miraculously God protects its beauty so that one day His love can shine out from under it all. The question is… will we let it?

These buds were crushed under the weight of snow and ice. So I picked them and placed them in water in a sunny window sill.

God wants to pull us from under the weight of our winter seasons, and bring us into His house, pour into us His living water, and let the Son’s love shine on us.

One day the ice and snow of winter’s loss will melt away. We will be made new and, any beauty to be seen, will be a reflection of the One who made us.