snow!

It's snowing!!!

I'm still feeling quite melancholy and trying to sort through my wealth of emotions. There is something comforting and refreshing about snow. It's like rain, in that it feels like creation is sad with me, and yet it's light and fluffy and right now coming down pretty hard. Since I live in Madrid, it likely won't stick, but for the time being I can enjoy the clumps of snow falling down.

My sweet roommate left a copy of a page from the book Thirty-one Days of Praise. It's exactly what I need right now:

Father, I'm so delighted that You are both loving and sovereign, and that You cause all things to work together for good to those who love You, to those who are called according to Your purpose. So I thank You for each disturbing or humbling situation in my life, for each breaking or cleansing process You are allowing, for each problem or hindrance, for each thing that triggers in me anxiety or anger or pain. And I thank You in advance for each disappointment, each demanding duty, each pressure, each interruption that may arise in the coming hours and days.

In spite of what I think or feel when I get my eyes off You, I choose not to resist my trials as intruders, but to welcome them as friends. (Okay, that's a little harder to say.)

Thank You that each difficulty is an opportunity to see You work... that in Your time You will bring me out to a place of abundance. I rejoice that You plan to enrich and beautify me through each problem, each conflict, each struggle... that through them You expose my weaknesses and needs, my hidden sins, my self-centeredness (and especially my self-reliance and pride (which are most definitely there more than I wish were the case)). Thank You that You use trials to humble me and perfect my faith and produce in me the quality of endurance that they prepare the soil of my heart for the fresh new growth in godliness that You and I both long to see in me... and that my momentary troubles are producing for me an eternal glory that far outweighs them all, as I keep my eyes focused on You. I'm grateful that You look beyond my superficial desire for a trouble-free life; instead, You fulfill my deep-down desire to glorify You, enjoy Your warm fellowship, and become more like Your Son.

I thank You for the bitter things
They've been a friend to grace,
They've driven me from teh paths of ease
To storm the secret place.
- Florence White Willett

Oh, how sweet the Lord is, how gentle and tender. Praise Him, even in the midst of a messy world, in fact, all the more in the mess of my life, those around me, and the broken sorrows of life, sin y tal.