Day 87 Faith in New Life

* * * * Warning: ugly, ugly photos, of ugly, ugly snirt spots. * * * *

Today I set out with my camera to search for patches of snowmelt, and what's emerging from beneath. Mostly, I found snirt, and not much of anything emerging just yet. And I thought of Becky, and her snowman yesterday, and reference to snirt. Becky, my buddy, you don't know snirt! :) That snowman on your blog was beautiful! Snirt is ugly, repulsive, wretched mixtures of compacted snow and dirt! Snirt pops up all over the city as the winter wears on, because there's no place to put the snow.

November snow here doesn't melt till spring (like in JUNE! ok, May). So it mixes with the dirt and sand on the roads (sand put down to keep you from spinning off into ditches). Snowplows come along and try to keep clearing it out of the roads, and they pile it wherever they can. It's not wise to run into it on the side of the road, because it would be like running into an ice wall.


In this pile of snirt, you can see where there was some snow melt, and it refroze into icicles. It's not sparkly clean and pretty; it just reminds you of how cold it still is here.

Sometimes half of a parking lot, or lanes,will disappear. . . taken over by the snirt piles, and you just have to park someplace else, or find another way to drive through the lots.

I particularly hate when the city snow plows pushes half of our block's snow & snirt to the front of our house, and drop it in front of our mailbox at the curb. Then the mailman leaves us a note that we won't get our mail until the path to the mailbox is clear. Clearing it does not mean a shovel, or a heavy duty snow plow; it means a practically a chisel or ice pick, to hack away a path to the mailbox again.

A former pastor/friend made the analogy between the snowmelt in our yards, and emerging new life. He commented that, no matter how bad our yards looks now, as the spring rains fall and summer sun rises, the receding snow reveals all the trash and crud and bareness of the ground now. "But there will be new leaves, new flowers, new life. God promises us the same new life through His Son and the Holy Spirit."

Titus 3:5 (NLT)
He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us, even though underneath our exteriors, there might be some ugliness and trash, and he has faith IN US, in the new life that can emerge.

Even so, when I look at snirt, I can't help but wish for a little cosmetic dusting of CLEAN snow on top of this ugliness, or a rapid melting, washing it away, and new growth NOW! But in ND, we try not to get our hopes up about any of this until we're well into April. Late April.