Are you a Snowflake?

I pray that no one reads this title as “We are all Flakes”!! HA! But seriously, we are all just like snowflakes made by God. Mike and I talked about and showed the Centenary PreSchool kids about snowflakes this week. Our friend, Fran, had drawn a beautiful tree on the main hallway in the PreSchool, which we decorate throughout the seasons. We colored and taped various colored leaves and squirrels to it in the fall, and now it is time for snowflakes! This is what I learned about snowflakes:

What is snow and how are snowflakes formed, you ask? Here is an explanation. Now stay with me on this:

Snow is comprised of small flakes of ice that fall down to the earth. Snow is a form of precipitation like rain and sleet. It snows when water in the atmosphere freezes into crystals. These tiny ice crystals form together to make snowflakes. The size of a snowflake depends on how many ice crystals connect together. Each snowflake is made up of about 200 ice crystals.

The ice crystals that make up snowflakes are symmetrical (or patterned) because they reflect the internal order of the crystal’s water molecules as they arrange themselves in predetermined spaces (known as “crystallization”) to form a six-sided snowflake. It is the temperature at which a crystal forms — and to a lesser extent the humidity of the air — that determines the basic shape of the ice crystal.

The intricate shape of a single arm of the snowflake is determined by the atmospheric conditions experienced by the entire ice crystal as it falls. A crystal might begin to grow arms in one manner, and then minutes or even seconds later, slight changes in the surrounding temperature or humidity causes the crystal to grow in another way. Although the six-sided shape is always maintained, the ice crystal (and its six arms) may branch off in new directions.

So, why are no two snowflakes exactly alike?

Well, that’s because individual snowflakes all follow slightly different paths from the sky to the ground —and thus encounter slightly different atmospheric conditions along the way.

Honestly we didn’t go into all of this detail with the kids, but God brought some inspiring correlations to mind as I read over this.

* We are like ice crystals except we are made up of physical molecules. God created each of us with our own “internal order” made up of the arrangement of our molecules.

* Throughout our lives - from infancy on - we experience the changing “atmospheric conditions” as we grow just as the ice crystal does as it falls. Our lives are full of change, expected and unexpected, and these occurrences create who we are.

We may or may not change the direction of our lives many times based on the “slight changes in the surrounding temperature or humidity” of our lives. God will lead us and bring good out of every “change”.

* God created snowflakes as unique and beautiful crystals which have followed slightly different paths and encountered slightly different atmospheric conditions along the way. So why wouldn’t we believe that He has created us in the same way - as unique, beautiful, strong individuals following different paths.

* Snowflakes are like us - no two are the same. Do you believe that each one of us is special and “fearfully and wonderfully made”? No one is like you! So we don’t really have to be jealous of each other because God loves each one just the same.

During parts of my life, I have wanted to be like someone else or have some trait/quality that someone else had, such as straight hair or being more of a conversationalist. But this message reinforces to me how God loves me and you just the way we are. After all, He is the one who made us in His image!!!! How could we not be loved by the Creator himself?

We are all beautiful in His sight!

Thanks for stopping by,

Rachel