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REFLECTIONS

Featured writer, Patty Zemanick

New Snow

Have you ever felt like that?  Dirty on the inside? For me, this ugliness was the result of sin in my life.  With every bad decision I made, I drifted further and further away from God.  Satan must have taken great delight in the fact that I felt completely defeated… after all, wasn’t this his ultimate victory?  My heart was heavy.  What to do… what to do… 

At this point in my life whenever I was faced with problems (the result of my sinfulness) -- I did what I did best… obsess.  I never found relief this way, so you’d think I’d try something different but 99.9% of the time I didn’t.  So there isn’t a reasonable explanation as to “why” I decided to deal with things differently on this day (except for divine intervention). You see -- on this day, instead of doing my normal “obsessing”… I was “dressing”.  I put on my heavy coat and boots and walked a few blocks to church for Sunday service. 

It was cold and gloomy out, we hadn’t seen the sun in days (not entirely uncommon for upstate New York in late November).  Just dark clouds, rain and sometimes snow.  When I stepped inside of the church things didn’t seem much brighter.  It was still dark and gloomy,  mostly because of poor lighting.  This was an old Catholic church with enormously tall ceilings, interior pillars and row upon row of wooden pews (stained a lovely dark brown).  There wasn’t anything cheery about this place except for the many colored candles that were reflecting light off one of the walls. 

I began to question myself…“Why am I here?  I have so much sin in my life, God doesn’t want anything to do with me.”   I was ashamed to be at church.  Ashamed before God.  Fearfully I began to pray.  Now I have to admit, I prayed with one eye open… just in case God decided to render a guilty verdict and a lightning bolt came flying at me… but, I prayed nonetheless.

In the distance I noticed a single beam of sunlight pouring through a stained glass window.  This beam of light extended across the length of the church until it finally reached me and went no further.  I was amazed.  I looked around. There wasn’t sunlight in any of the other windows, there wasn’t sunlight on any of the other people in the church.  Yet, here I was… with so much sun on my face, I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  I was warmed by the sun, right down to my toes. I was filled with peace and I had a strong feeling that “everything would be all right”.  I cried with joy.

As soon as church was over, I raced to the doors, threw them open and ran down the steps.  Where was the sun I had just experienced? It wasn’t there.  In fact, it was no where to be found.  It was still dreary outside (just as it had been for days). Was the stream of sunlight God’s way of showing me that He had heard my prayer? I tried to reason with myself.  Perhaps it was just coincidental.  Perhaps the sun just happened to come out for a few minutes and just happened to shine through that one window and just happened to land on me. Why was it so hard to believe that God gave me a special gift? Because… I felt unworthy. 

There is something magical about being outside after a  new snow.  Everything is glistening white.   The ugliness of dirty, gray, slushy snow is covered up.  Everything is beautiful once again. Then you experience the “winter wonderland” that people sing about at Christmas. I wish things could always stay clean and glistening white.  I wish I could remain free from sin… I suppose all I can do is try and give thanks to God for forgiveness… for “new snow”. 

Patty

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