Kentucky Snowfall

We got some good snow the other day and it finally cleared up this evening to head out into the 18º weather to get a few, nice subtle, sunset pictures. This is a three image vertorama with a few localized level adjustments a desaturation layer, and a strip of exposure change to bring out the tree line. I love shooting snowscapes, beautiful light just seems to create itself as it leaps and bounces off the snow and trees.

 

Snow is a such fascinating phenomenon of nature, something that never ceases to amaze me. The way it gently floats to the earth, yet over relatively short periods of time can cover whole cities and towns with many feet of its airy lightness.

The Bible has much to say about snow. Here are a few of my favorites.

 

Psalm 51:7

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

 

Psalm 148:7-8

Praise the Lord from the earth,

you great sea creatures and all deeps,

fire and hail, snow and mist,

stormy wind fulfilling his word!

 

Isaiah 1:18

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

 

Isaiah 55:10-11

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

and do not return there but water the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

 

Do you see a theme for which snow is used? I actually see two, snow is used to compare our hearts cleanness after it has been washed in the blood of Jesus, and snow used as an example for the word of God, not returning void. Snow, like God's Word does not return void, it falls and covers the earth and feeds and waters it. It is also very clean, its water, yet like us it can be contaminated and tainted with sin yet it will never cease to be snow and if there were a way to remove the mud and grime it would once again be pure snow. This is what the blood of Christ does for us, removes our heart of stone and replaces it with a beating heart of flesh that can feel the affections of Christ. We become whiter and cleaner then the purest snow once we are adopted into the righteousness of Christ. For once He took upon himself our sins to pay from them on the cross under the infinite almighty, righteous wrath of God, we were provided a way to be purified. This is the most beautiful thing in the world, the Son would come to earth, the perfect, all holy God, to take upon Himself the bloody, dirty, filthy sins of the whole world for all time and to bear the righteous, unrestrained wrath of the Father on a cross, shamed before those he was dying for, for no other reason then to save for Himself a people for His own possession that they might be to the glory of His name for all of eternity. Christ bore so much more then just the pain of a death on a cross, He bore the wrath of Almighty God that would have fallen on you and me for all of eternity in Hell. He died on account of His wrath over our sin, He killed himself for us, but not that we would be freed only, but that we would be freed from sin that we might be enslaved to righteousness and pursue holiness with the same passion a vigor in which we once ran after sin. "O soak here Christian, for there is no better place to linger!"

Done