You Are a Snowflake

From Wilson Bentley, "The Snowflake Man"

 

Unique. Beautiful. Each snowflake and each person. As the winter solstice draws near and snow is falling in many places, I am reminded that we are like snowflakes, each person a one-of-a-kind beautiful creation of God. During the winter solstice, the sun is at its most distant point from earth. During these cold months its often easy to feel distant or cold; yet this is our golden opportunity to fall snowflake-like and bring the beauty of Light from Beyond to dark, lonely places.

If you are feeling inadequate, overwhelmed or afraid during this Advent and Christmas season, remember the snowflake, and boldly adorn the corner of the world where God has sent you with all the shining beauty that is yours and yours alone. 

In his humble birth, our Savior Jesus Christ is the perfect picture of this; singular event in all creation, the Creator lying humbly in a bed of straw, a wisp of a baby shining brightly for eons beyond the day of his birth.

Let your light shine! The following poem from Marianne Wilson illuminates this further . . .

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,

        talented, and fabulous—

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

        so that other people

Won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.

It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone,

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously

Give other people permission to do the same. 1

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1  Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love (New York: Harper Collins, 1992). As quoted by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander in The Art of Possibility, Penquin Books, 2000, page 178-179.  Zander says that Nelson Mandela is reported to have said these words to the world at large.

In the 1920's Wilson Bentley took beautiful photos of snowflakes under the microscope.  The Snowflake Man