I captured a bit of God’s handiwork on my sleeve today. Jonathan Edwards once said, “Nature is God’s greatest evangelist.” I must say, I concur.
Creation testifies.
It occurs to me often: God didn’t have to make such beauty. He could have simply provided for our needs in a strictly utilitarian kind of way. He didn’t have to make each snowflake a work of art. He didn’t have to make flowers bloom in endless colors or scent the air with their perfume. He didn’t have to paint the sky with fire at sunset or sculpt canyons with rivers that mirror His glory—each bend and curve a testament to His artistry.
He didn’t have to fill our mornings with symphonies of birdsong. He didn’t have to scatter inky, night skies with stars that arrest our attention with their brilliance and constancy. He didn’t have to order the seasons with such precision—winter’s hush, spring’s renewal, summer’s abundance, autumn’s release—each one echoing a far deeper truth: a parable of death, rebirth, and the steady hand of the One who holds it all together.
His creative fullness spills over into breathtaking beauty, each component telling a story more grand than we can begin to imagine in our own frailty and finitude.
The flakes are fleeting, yet not without purpose. They eventually succumb to the elements, but for glorious moments exist in breathtaking beauty, intricately designed by a Creator who specializes in marvels. Despite their fragility—their transience—they still make their mark while they’re here, reflecting exquisite beauty not only in their descent, but in the quiet transformation they bring.
As a widow, I am more aware than many of the brevity of life. I know that a significant life isn’t measured merely in years, but in impact. Like the snowflakes, we are here for only a short while, yet we are designed with care and purpose, tasked with the privilege and responsibility to reflect God’s love and glory in ways uniquely our own.
Long after the snow has melted, the beauty will remain, demonstrated in vivid, ceaseless ways by the One who scooped out the oceans and spoke the world into being. Grace, daily woven into the ordinary, testifies to a Creator who delights in making all things new.
God’s power, as evidenced through His handiwork, gives me hope, not only for my life, but yours as well. For surely, if He has the power to craft galaxies and command the changing tides, He has the power to sustain us—to hold us fast in both the bitter cold of winter and the warmth of every new beginning.
Much of what happens is beyond our control, yet not beyond His care. The same God who adorns the earth with beauty tends to us with even greater intention, provides for us with even greater devotion, and loves us with even greater affection. How very blessed we are.
“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting—a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.”
~ 𝐑𝐚𝐥𝐩𝐡 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐝𝐨 𝐄𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧
“God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”
~ 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧 𝐋𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫