Snowflakes

      I realize that we are no longer in the season where we can enjoy snowflakes and the blanket of white they leave behind, but curiosity led me to look up why no two snowflakes are alike. I have read that ice crystals form onto pollen or dust particles in the sky, when it is extremely cold outside.  I could talk about the crystallization of the snowflake, which causes the symmetrical pattern, but what I have found more interesting in my reading is that it's the changes in the environment (or atmosphere) that determine what it will look like when it reaches the earth.  The snowflake is influenced, in one way, by other snowflakes it comes into contact with as they also fall to the ground. 
      It seems to me that we have something in common with snowflakes.  God has created each one of us, building us cell by cell, as we grow throughout our life.  But unlike the snowflake, we have more dimensions to our individuality, namely, who we are on the inside. It is our environment that contributes to who we are--our families, our friends, even those with whom we come into contact on a day-to-day basis.  They "bump" us, like the snowflakes bump one another as they fall through the atmosphere.  When snowflakes fall, they change slightly as they bump into other snowflakes.  If God delights in the process it takes to make one snowflake uniquely different from another, how much more does our God delight in us!

Snowflakes

By Lisa Hare Wimberly

How delicate the snowflake,

So intricately formed.

It quickly disappears from sight

The moment it is warmed.

And, yet, God our Father

Will not make two the same.

He fashions each one differently,

As if it had a name.

He sees each one as special—

Six sides reflecting light.

With other snowflakes it becomes

A blanket pure and white.

And like the snowflake, God has made us

Special and unique.

Then, in a moment, we are gone,

For like snow, we are weak.

But we are each significant

However long our life.

For time does not dictate our worth

In God the Father’s eyes.

And like the little snowflake,

So delicate and free,

God treasures what His hand creates,

And He delights in me.