Snow Smiles

 One day when it had snowed here, I discovered that one of my children (probably my son) had done some snow art.

A snow smile on Crystal's car!

Here is Crystal, having collected some items from her stash of bulletin board supplies from her school years, ready to head up to church to redecorate the big bulletin board in the basement of the church, and to change it from Christmas to winter.  

It was something to do as she tries to figure out the puzzle of her life right now, quietly piecing one piece after another together of the thousand pieces of this puzzle that Hope Family Chapel had given us and that she had begun in early January and finally finished a few weeks later. 

And a poster ("Take my Hand, Not my Life") that she made for a Right to Life gathering at the South Dakota capitol in Pierre last Sunday--except that the death of our neighbor made some changes in plans and the children never did go to Pierre.

But the bulletin board in the church basement speaks each Sunday.

"Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

It was one of the verses I read and prayed in my bedroom at twelve years of age in Custer, South Dakota, way back in the Dark Ages when my family was living our last summer there.

It was the verse along with the promise in Isaiah 1:18 that became real to me that July evening as I prayed to be saved. 

"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

And that night 46 years ago, my heart was washed whiter than the snow.

Oh, my Father, keep my heart pure and white always--with a snow smile drawn in it--for the heart You have made white will be joyful and happy in You!