Conversations with a snowflake

The world outside my window lay blanketed in dazzling white. I stepped outside and drank deeply from the cold fresh air.

"Good morning, Mistress Snowflake," I greeted the freshly fallen flakes.

"Tell me, where have you come from this morning?" I asked as I marvelled at her beauty and splendour.

"O from vast heights of velvet clouds. But we were not always as you see us now," chirped the particular snowflake I had focused my gaze on.

"Go on, tell me more."

"We lay about the earth, in stagnant pools by busy roadsides, in polluted puddles in industrious cities, in effluent-ridden seawater. Some of us lay in leaf blocked gutters and in wayside ditches."

Seeing my surprise she explained, "We were not as you see us now. We were mere water drops—filthy and contaminated."

I gazed at the breathtaking beauty of the intricate structure of this perfect crystal flake and marvelled at its brilliance, "How then did you come to this?"

"The sunlight kissed us and caught us heavenward. How it happened none of us can tell. Before we knew what was happening, we were swept through the skies and set free once more."

There was a moment's silence as she remembered that glorious day, then she continued, "We gazed at each other in astonishment. For, in some wonderful way, we had been cleansed from all that had soiled us, made as white as we are now!"

The snowflake says no more, but I am left to ponder its beauty and purity, and the awe with which she beheld her own glorious transformation.

"Surely I was sinful at birth...wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." - Psalm 51

‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; - Isaiah 1:18