Winter Wonders

I said that we had a perfect Christmas day, but I was slightly over-exaggerating. You see, I love snow. In fact, I have been insanely jealous of those living in Spokane, where last week, they had three feet of snow. And while we had plenty of snow on the ground, and the weather forecast promised snow on Christmas day, what we got instead was rain. Technically we had a white Christmas, but the rain was just not doing it for me. While I love snow, I hate slush. Snow + rain = slush. Not good.

However, the next morning, we awoke to another eight inches of sparkling snow. Heaven! And that night, as I glanced out the kitchen window, I saw this:



Can you tell what it is? If not, how about this picture taken through my backdoor window:



Icicles had formed on the "icicle lights." While I was not happy about the rain, it had formed these beautiful icicles on my Christmas lights. Sometimes there are things that happen in my life that are hard and I don't understand why they have to happen. Then later on, in retrospect, I realize that those things had to happen in order for me to receive certain blessings and also in order for me to appreciate those blessings. Many times, there are beautiful things that come into our lives as a result of the difficult and not-so-beautiful things that we've just been through. The beautiful icicles outside of my window were formed as the rain combined with the incoming storm's cold air and the result was stunning.



As I weather life's storms, I need to recognize that my Heavenly Father is in charge, and if I just hang on long enough, trusting in him, the outcome will be spectacular.