how silently, how silently the wondrous gift was given

we didn't get any snow here in Utah for Christmas. that's fine by me. i don't care a whole lot for the way snow interferes on the roads. but i love the look of it.

my favorite is when an insulating cloud drags itself overhead, slowly grating along the frozen sky, shaking down frosted crystal shavings. it's the snow you can feel before you see it, because every sound has been muted, been absorbed into the floating flakes. when the snow finally touches, a faint echo of its vertical journey softly clicks on every surface: the trees' twiggy tongues, yellow grass eyelashes, rooftop nose ridges...

how silently, so silently love descends from pure heaven. today, no snow in the sky or on the ground, but piles and flurries of love in my heart this Christmas season. i'm not sure what did it. well, yes i am; Jesus did it, as he does with everything that involves love. i am just so filled with gratitude that my family is alive and well, that my friends are so many and so wonderful. i am surrounded by immovable snowpacks of miracles, unmeltable blessings.

as he came to earth, so he comes to hearts that invite him still to enter in. silently. you feel it before you see it. the noisy cares of the world and life are muted and absorbed in his endless love, which love will drift high in your heart; and instead of cover the roads, show the way; instead of chill the surface, ignite the core.

the greatest gift i could ever receive is a daily snow dusting of what the angels declared to simple shepherds tending their flocks that night: good tidings and great joy. I have a massive love for the gospel good tidings of Jesus Christ and am blessed with a testimony, gathered silently, experience by experience, that God did send that perfect child, who grew and lived as my model example; who atoned to take my scarlet sins and, through faith and repentance, renew my soul as though it were white as snow; and who died to bridge the way over death to life eternal.

by way of honest faith, i have had undeniable miracles in my life, simple and great, and i have come to know my Savior. he has granted my every, daily blessing.

and I am completely snowed in.