White as Snow Man

By Cynthia Ruchti

Here in the northwoods, we were one day away from having a brown Christmas. A cold rain fell, hard enough to pound the roof of the church in which we were celebrating the first of three Christmas Eve services. The first was on the night before Christmas Eve.

We left the church with hearts full--the songs and truths of the Christmas story enveloping us in a palpable warmth.

With rain pelting the windshield on the twenty-minute ride home, we watched the outside temperature drop. Lights on the dash told us the temp had dropped two degrees within the space of two miles.

Then another two degrees a few miles down the road. The splats against the windshield looked different. Wider. Splotchy. My husband and I were there, watching, the moment the rain turned to snow. Maybe it was the wonder of the story of a Creator God who sent His Son to rescue us, but the conversion from rain to snow and the symbolism of snow's biblical connection to our redemption--"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow" (Isaiah 1:18)--but as the snow fell, it created a holy scene.

The snow stayed. By morning, it had covered all the bare branches, the brown lawns and empty fields. The world had turned white overnight. All its blemishes, covered.

Christmas lights glistened brighter against the stark white. The full moon on snow on Christmas night made it possible to see clearly at midnight. Nothing could lurk in the darkness. It lay exposed to the Light and visible against the white on which the moon shone.

Even though the days of celebration are over or nearly over, the concept of what Christmas represents cannot be packed away in the attic or stored on shelves in the garage of our lives.

When this snow melts--in a few days or a few months--the snowy brilliance of sins forgiven remains.

The Child came. Lived. Died for us. Conquered death. The White-as-Snow God/Man.

No breath we take will ever be the same.

Cynthia Ruchti tells stories hemmed in hope through award-winning novels, novellas, devotions, nonfiction books and speaking events for women and writers. She and her husband live in the heart of snowy Wisconsin, not far from their three children and five grandchildren. You can connect with her at cynthiaruchti.com or hemmedinhope.com or on Facebook at CynthiaRuchtiReaderPage.