The Truth About Snow

Most of us have seen snow. You’ve all heard how snow begins in the clouds, how it comes from the sky, how it sometimes causes school to close.

But some children don’t believe in snow. It's not hard to understand why – many of them have never seen it. In their minds snow is like Charlie Brown, Rudolph, and Santa’s elves. It’s just another Christmas thing they see in animated Christmas specials that they wish was true but isn’t. Some children don’t even believe in mittens – or in snow forts or frozen ponds or in making snowmen or snow angels.

But snow is real. Just ask any Eskimo. Or any penguin. Or ask my friends who made snow prints today. Each of them created a snowflake on paper (with a little help from our teachers). Afterwards they could turn it this way and that and appreciate the beauty of a single snowflake. And – as each child is different and unique – each snowflake was different and unique.

And now my friends can recognize real snowflakes; they are not make-believe after all. With uplifted faces they can run joyfully and carelessly through the falling snow, catching all they can on their tongues. Because my teachers made them see them before they came to be. Because seeing is believing.

But sometimes believing is seeing – Isn’t that what faith is all about – when we know that something is real even if we don’t see it?