I was a public school teacher for 14 years of my life. I was never an administrator, but I did learn that school districts usually built into their school calendars "snow days". Generally speaking, a snow day was when a school had to shut down for the day because of inclement weather or some other emergency. The students and (sometimes) the teachers were not required to make up these days. They only had to make up those days that exceeded the set amount of built-in snow days. Although snow never shut down the schools I worked at in California, other events did. In Oklahoma, we exceeded our snow days and all of us had to make them up. But, when school was called off, that day was now a HOLIDAY.
Last night, our little town in Arkansas was anticipating 1-2 inches of snowfall. Umm, that forecast was very wrong. I opened the front door around 6 AM, expecting to see the ground covered in white snow, and all I saw was the lawn covered in leaves. No snow. My oldest child, Lyzander, woke up at 5:30 to do his personal bible study, but went back to sleep on the couch. He forgot all about the snowy forecast. I reluctantly woke everyone up so that we could all get ready for the scheduled work and school day. The weather apps were not completely wrong. Between 7:30 AM and 8:30 AM, they were snowflakes falling, but they did not stick to the ground. The kids were still excited that they were allowed to walk to school while it was "snowing". Yeah, that is still pretty cool!
Although we were a bit disappointed that we were not going to be able to have a friendly snowball fight with our neighbors today, the talk of snow did remind me of that song "White as Snow" that I have sung many times in church. That led me to do some research. I wanted to know if any of the lyrics were taken from Scripture. I have experienced waking up to snow-covered neighborhoods before (just not today). When I am safely and cozily inside, I can admire how clean snow makes everything look. The Blood of Jesus, when He died on the cross for our sins, made us clean before God's eyes. We don't just look "clean", but we have been forgiven of all of our sins and can be presented to the Father. Let us reflect on that on this non-snow day.
“Come now, let us reason[a] together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
Isaiah 1:18 (English Standard Version)
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