Yesterday, I got to experience one of maybe three or four times in my 22 years that I’ve actually seen real snow. When I say “real snow”, I mean not the stuff that we pretend is snow in Texas. Which is sleet. No, this was real snow. There were fat flakes that fell from the heavens, and I caught them on my tongue, and it stuck. There were a couple inches of it, and people were able to make real snowmen. It was really neat, because we don’t get to experience something like that very often. It was fun to see everyone’s pictures, and read their facebook and twitter status updates about what they’d done in the snow, and what some of their younger kids had done and said. I even sat on a chair on my bed and watched it fall outside of my bedroom window for a while. Because honestly, it was really quite beautiful.
Today, I woke up at 10:48 a.m. to a frustrated phone call, rolled out of bed, and threw on some clothes to run an errand. When I got outside, I had to squint, because things were so bright. I wondered if the the sun was always brighter the day after a snow. Because the air seems so much cleaner. That makes a lot of sense in my head. As I read it just now though, I realize it sounds weird. So anyway, as I’m driving, I notice that a lot of the snow is melted. And I was kind of sad, because I wanted to play in it a little bit today, but that apparently wasn’t in the cards. On my way home though, I noticed that it was melted even more than when I’d left this morning. Yards were mostly bare again, and mushy and wet where large patches of snow melted. Snowmen were melted down, or had fallen over. And roofs were dripping all of the melted snow onto walkways, and flower beds. I started thinking about how gross the day after snow is. Because honestly, it really is quite ugly.
And it hit me. It’s a lot like sin. In the moment, it is fun, and beautiful, and new and enticing. You like it, you love it even. You want to play with it, and in some cases, you don’t even mind showing it off! Because it’s so great, right?! Look at what it’s doing for you. It makes you feel good. It give you the upper hand. It makes you a better person honestly.
And then reality sets in. And the newness wears off. And you feel gross. You want it gone, but it won’t go as quickly as you want it to! It’s causing problems now. It’s mucking up your life, because now you and everyone else see it for what it really is. It is a sickness. A disease even. And it is going to cost you something to get rid of it. It will probably hurt. It will not be as fun as it was at first. It will be nothing like building that snowman.
-Stippick
