He gives snow like wool;

he scatters frost like ashes.

He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;

who can stand before his cold?

He sends out his word, and melts them;

he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.

(Psalm 147:16-18)

Kent, http://rescuejesusnow.wordpress.com/ commented that he was tired of snow until he saw a photo I took of some peaks in the Steeples Range near near us last week. https://charispsallo.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/indeed-everything/ Thank you, Kent. I am so glad you liked it, but you know, I get tired of snow too.

So far Canadians have been doing exceptionally well at the Winter Olympics. Yes! Do we do winter sports, or what?!

Well, some of us do. After the last two broken bones earned in the treacherous Parking Lot Crossing event, the novelty of winter sports sort of wore off for me. The valley we live in has less snow than the surrounding mountain tops, of course, but a check of snow conditions on the nearby ski hill turned up the fact that we have received more than twelve feet of snow so far. And we haven’t had a cancellation or snow day yet.

Unlike London or Atlanta, which come to a complete standstill when two inches of the white stuff sends their residents into lock-down mode, or like Simon Fraser University campus in Burnaby which broadcasts evacuation alerts seemingly before having time to clarify if the white flecks are snowflakes or dandruff, we are equipped. We have plows. Big plows. We have trucks capable of redistributing the sands of an entire get-away beach onto the highways in a day. (Well, we call them highways. One pundit wrote that interior British Columbia doesn’t have highways; it has corners with short connectors between them. The lower mainland just has a lot of wet parking lots.)

I admit that I groaned when I looked outside this morning. More snow -with predictions of a whole week of this. I should have gone for groceries when I had the chance. Now I’ll have another coffee and hope the plow comes down our street  (aka the neighbourhood luge run) before I go out. (If you want to drop by and share some with me I recommend leaning hard to the right after the electric box and before the pine tree. Mind the hidden fire hydrant.)

The same day I took photos of the Steeples Range I passed by a creek that runs near the base called Wildhorse Creek. There are still gold-mining operations in the area that started a rush over a hundred years ago. The real gold now is the water itself.

When the snow melts on these mountains it will flow into the creek which joins the Kootenay River. That river eventually flows into waterways which gather the melting snow water from many such mountains and sends it gushing across the border into the States, as the Columbia River, to water fields and provide power, recreation and transportation for millions.

I started thinking about abundance and the provision God gives us and I think it is meant to work in a similar way. Hanging on to all that water would eventually end up in the destruction of our own environment. The valleys would drown. We enjoy it, but most of it is meant to bless our neighbours who desperately need it right now. Hanging on to all God has given us, thinking we are somehow entitled or fearing that someday the provision will stop, is to no one’s benefit, least of all our own.

God has riches stored up for all of us, but trying to possess his abundant gifts without passing them on creates an environment where greed stifles love and is destructive to our own souls.

Freely receive, freely give. There’s more where that came from.

Have you ever traveled to where snow is made,

seen the vault where hail is stockpiled?

(Job 38:22)