The Snowflake
Another year and we’re still dreaming of a white Christmas here in Tennessee.
It’s a dream that the young, and the young at heart, continue to cherish:
That we’ll wake up to a world covered in white, where the sun glints off the ice-covered branches or snowflakes fall softly, covering the ground in a blanket of white.
I think we cherish this dream because in that moment, all the earth pauses and, in the stillness, it’s as if we can see, for just a moment, beyond the veil to the world as it should be, as it will be: new, pure, and clean.
In that moment it is with deep and abiding joy that we glimpse the majesty of our God’s plan to restore beauty to all things.
So, in honor of that dream, in hopes of that snow-covered morning, the Pre-K class at The Classical Academy of Franklin is learning all about snow and snowflakes.
We’ve practiced our fine motor skills by cutting out our very own snowflakes (with only a little bit of help).
We’ve practiced pattern making with bead bracelets.
We’ve worked on sequencing by “building” our own snowman. We’ve had a “snowball” fight. And we will do many other fun “snow” things this week.
However, I think the most precious moment of our winter week happened when we learned how snowflakes are made.
The children were amazed to find out that God makes something so wonderful, beautiful, and unique from a speck of dust and water molecule.
I asked them if they remembered what else God made from dust?
“Us! He made us!” they shouted excitedly. Thus, ensued a simple but wonderful theology lesson filled with lots of questions and discussion.
It went a little something like this:
God, the Creator of all things, makes beautiful things from dust and each of us is wonderfully, beautifully, and uniquely made like a snowflake.
Then one student thoughtfully asked, “But does God love us more than any of those things?”
I asked the students what they thought, and the consensus was that God must love us more, but they weren’t sure or able to say why and so the short theology lesson expanded.
God loves all of His creation. He made it and it is good.
But we are different from everything else because of WHY God made us.
All of the world and everything in it, God made for you and me.
God made it all, so we would have a beautiful home to live in.
But then God made us for Himself.
He made us to walk with Him and talk with Him, to be in relationship with Him.
We also know we’re different because of how God made us.
“Do you remember?” I asked them.
“From the dust!” they chimed in excitedly again.
Yes, we were formed from the dust of the earth and something else.
The snowflake is dust and a water molecule; we are dust and what?
When God formed man out of the dust of the earth, He breathed into us the very Breath of God.
He didn’t speak, He bent low and came down to the dust to give it life.
God made us in His image.
This is how we know that we are His most precious and cherished possession.
The Bible reveals God’s unfailing love for us.
It is the story of a God who loves us so much He bent low and came down taking upon Himself the “dust” giving His own life to bring us home, to restore us to Himself.
The Bible is a “secret” rescue mission revealed in a tiny baby Immanuel-God with us.
Who knew you could learn so much from a snowflake?
I treasure sharing the joy and excitement, the wonder and curiosity of their simple faith.
Thank you for trusting them to me.
Written by:
Heather Watts
Pre-K Teacher
The Classical Academy of Franklin
