Tag Archives: winter

The world outside was suddenly transforming so I pressed my nose against the window looking out into a world. I squinted my eyes to see if I could see the details of one snowflake and then I thought of Wilson.

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Wilson. Wilson loved to play outdoors. He loved to catch butterflies in the spring time and see sniff the sweetness of apple blossoms. He loved to leap with the grasshoppers in the summer. In the fall, he loved to jump in the leaves and feel them fluttering around him twirling down. In the winter, he would stretch out his hands and stick out his tongue into the cold crisp air, and feast on icy crystals.

If I blinked I could see through the winter shadows a young girl in a pink snow suit and white puffy hat standing in the middle of white. Goldi has her arms spread out and her nose pointed up. Every now and then she touches her nose to her mitten and sees what has come down from the heavens.

Wilson knew a secret about snowflakes and it seemed like only he knew the secret. He knew that each snowflake was different. He knew that there was no way to count each snowflake that fell. But he did know that every single flake he did see ( and that was many) was different. He knew because as he watched them fall, he wanted to save their beauty for all to see. So he sketched them. But they melted before he could finish.

Then, his mother gave him a camera. It was a camera with a microscope. He could zoom in on the snowflake and capture proof of what he knew was true. He took so many. It wasn’t easy. But he wanted to share his secret so that others would have the same joy in their hearts like he did when the snowfall.

“What do you see?” I was interrupting the precious hush of the snowfall but I wanted to know if Goldi knew the secret too.

“It’s it’s… like like a very cold flower.” she said. “It’s really really nice. It’s …. Prettiest- Goldi whispers the last word. It’s the best word she can think of to say. She is lost in wonder and is speechless.

“It IS the prettiest” I would say back smiling.

Wilson thought that snowflakes were as beautiful as apple blossoms and butterflies. He called them masterpieces. Most people didn’t care at first. But then, after he took hundreds of snowflake pictures, they started to look and wonder too.

One night the snowflakes were coming down so fast. There were millions and millions of them. Wilson was walking right into a winter storm. Wilson got sick and he died. But now, he is famous. There is a monument somewhere in a small town in Vermont. There is a book written about him too. It’s called Snowflake Bentley. If you read the book, you will know more about the snowflake secret.

Yet, this secret goes beyond the very fact that there are no two snowflakes alike or that they are prettiest. It’s a secret that puts anyone in a state of awe. Perhaps Wilson knew the deepest secret of all. I think Goldi knew then just as she knows now. The only way to know this secret is to be lost in wonder as you stand in the middle of the falling flakes. You have to believe even if you don’t understand. You have to believe that the snowflake comes from the highest Heaven where the one who makes them every winter lives. He makes them and with each one He whispers’ “I love you. You are mine. You are the prettiest.”

“He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs. Who can stand before His cold?

Psalm 147:17

The Snowflake Secret of Mr. Winter

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The world outside was suddenly transforming so I pressed my nose against the window looking out into a world. I squinted my eyes to see if I could see the details of one snowflake and then I thought of Wilson.

Wilson. Wilson loved to play outdoors. He loved to catch butterflies in the spring time and see sniff the sweetness of apple blossoms. He loved to leap with the grasshoppers in the summer. In the fall, he loved to jump in the leaves and feel them fluttering around him twirling down. In the winter, he would stretch out his hands and stick out his tongue into the cold crisp air, and feast on icy crystals.

If I blinked I could see through the winter shadows a young girl in a pink snow suit and white puffy hat standing in the middle of white. Goldi has her arms spread out and her nose pointed up. Every now and then she touches her nose to her mitten and sees what has come down from the heavens.

Wilson knew a secret about snowflakes and it seemed like only he knew the secret. He knew that each snowflake was different. He knew that there was no way to count each snowflake that fell. But he did know that every single flake he did see ( and that was many) was different. He knew because as he watched them fall, he wanted to save their beauty for all to see. So he sketched them. But they melted before he could finish.

Then, his mother gave him a camera. It was a camera with a microscope. He could zoom in on the snowflake and capture proof of what he knew was true. He took so many. It wasn’t easy. But he wanted to share his secret so that others would have the same joy in their hearts like he did when the snowfall.

“What do you see?” I was interrupting the precious hush of the snowfall but I wanted to know if Goldi knew the secret too.

“It’s it’s… like like a very cold flower.” she said. “It’s really really nice. It’s …. Prettiest- Goldi whispers the last word. It’s the best word she can think of to say. She is lost in wonder and is speechless.

“It IS the prettiest” I would say back smiling.

Wilson thought that snowflakes were as beautiful as apple blossoms and butterflies. He called them masterpieces. Most people didn’t care at first. But then, after he took hundreds of snowflake pictures, they started to look and wonder too.

One night the snowflakes were coming down so fast. There were millions and millions of them. Wilson was walking right into a winter storm. Wilson got sick and he died. But now, he is famous. There is a monument somewhere in a small town in Vermont. There is a book written about him too. It’s called Snowflake Bentley. If you read the book, you will know more about the snowflake secret.

Yet, this secret goes beyond the very fact that there are no two snowflakes alike or that they are prettiest. It’s a secret that puts anyone in a state of awe. Perhaps Wilson knew the deepest secret of all. I think Goldi knew then just as she knows now. The only way to know this secret is to be lost in wonder as you stand in the middle of the falling flakes. You have to believe even if you don’t understand. You have to believe that the snowflake comes from the highest Heaven where the one who makes them every winter lives. He makes them and with each one He whispers’ “I love you. You are mine. You are the prettiest.”

“He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs. Who can stand before His cold?

Psalm 147:17

When it snows….

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When it snows, I remember the winter I felt swallowed up. After a long night of the wind roaring, and singing, Snow had buried our house. My bedroom window showed a white nothing outside world. It looked that way through every window of the house. No street lamp. No house across the street. No driveway. No mailbox. No trees. Only white. It was the realest, wildest winter I can remember.

Outside in the cold white, everything was hidden- including me up to my neck. There I was in my. own front yard, and yet I really I didn’t know where I was. The bushes, the place where the grass ended and the driveway started, and the steps to my front door, were all erased. Playtime that winter was all about discovering and exploring. We could do things that we had never done before and never did again. We made forts big enough to fit three people inside. We sled off the roof of our house. We didn’t look before we crossed the street. We made a whole family of snow people. We could look out for miles from the tops of snow piles taller than Abraham Lincoln.

For two long weeks, I wondered. I wondered if I would ever see the green grass again. I wondered if the tree in my front window would stretch taller toward a sunny sky, wake up, and get dressed in green. I wondered if I would ever see the robin again singing just outside my window, or bobbing around in the green grass. I wondered if the tulips that grew along the sidewalk would poke up.

We had a state of emergency for the first time in my life. At age 10, that meant my dad and three other neighbor dads had to walk a few miles to the grocery store in a sled because there was no food in the house. There was were no cars on the road. Who knew if there was food for sale at the grocery store?. When they turned the corner, I wondered if we would see them again.

The blizzard happened in January. But it took until late April for the trees to dress up in green. The grass was all sloshy. But the green got deeper with the sunshine. The blades were thick. The tulips had tripled. And the robin did come back and build a nest right in the tree outside my front window, laid three eggs, and one spring morning, I heard singing again and I didn’t think a wink about what had happened just a short time ago. Everything had been swallowed up by spring.