I don’t knock the snow or complain “too much” if it snows – God knows why He needs that snow – think of all the things that He could use to get our attention or stop us in our tracks for His purposes… Snow is one of them…  and often we DO see it coming. How can we complain if we know the game.

ICE? well, that is another question – and we seem to get more ice than snow lately, LIKE TODAY, where I sit on the classic ice/snow corridor- but why wouldn’t God use any and all circumstances to His advantage? Ice is even more halting, more stopping power than snow. Ice is nice if you want to skate on it, not brake on it.

I love snow as you all know – but with folks worrying about the snow, I have to share these important blogs to me that were early on in my awakening, where the snow and the ice were CRUCIAL to my awakening… So, I don’t knock the snow, God is IN THE KNOW!!! Your inconvenience may be someone else’s awakening, like mine…

GOD SENDS SNOWFLAKES AT HIS RIGHT TIME. SNOWFLAKES timing may be divine.

Don’t Knock the Snow, God is in the Know!

Snow is divine! Just ask Job if he knows!

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blogs where I KNEW God was pushing me more mature in my faith

https://debbieupper.blog/2015/12/23/god-decorated-my-christmas-tree-27jan-42/

#42 God Decorated my Christmas Tree, 27JAN 2015

Oh crud (not the word I used)…I just realized that this is nor’EASTER snow…not Christmas snow but Easter snow….guess Easter’s roller coaster is here for me to start my ride…  😉

I see God decorated my Christmas tree even more beautifully then I could have ever done…. Countless tiny decorations…Not the snow amounts I expected, but the snow I needed, and it’s still coming…and I thank God for SNOW and Christmas…

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https://debbieupper.blog/2016/01/30/sheds-snow-be-still-and-know-that-i-am-god-20mar-101/

#101

Sheds, Snow, Be Still and Know that I AM GOD, 20Mar 2015

“Be still and know that I am God.”    I think about that scripture a lot… and yet I’ve always thought that doesn’t mean I have to be idle. I was thinking so much about God, about me, about the church, and about bringing people back into the church… and about the conference I’m going to tomorrow about why people leave church.

Maybe we should ask why people stay in church rather than why they leave church. Maybe people are not being fed with spiritual wholesomeness, maybe they just don’t have time for light church activities, maybe they stay when they really feel connected.

If I hadn’t reached out with my faith questions I wonder how long it would have taken for someone to ask me (in love): “Hey there, Debbie, where are you with your faith?”  You know, I think people really had already asked me that, perhaps I really didn’t hear them talking to me!  An early person to whom I told about my faith questioning said something like: “Oh, you are a church leader… we really are not doing a good job of tending to our own are were?”. But well, it’s OK – no one knew – I know that everybody’s busy… it’s not really anyone’s fault…it’s no one’s fault that we are so busy… there’s so many people to attend to….  If I felt the time in the place to question to vocalize my struggles years before, I wonder if I would have done it. It took me awhile to get over this embarrassment of my faith questions. So, who knows where I’d be now…. it was God’s timing – not mine and certainly not anyone elses…. It’s always God’s timing… God took the corrective action on me now, after I was already well established in my church community, so maybe I’m the one that is supposed to now ask you people, you friends, “Where are you in your faith?”

People say read your Bible everyday, I didn’t… I did certainly talk to God everyday and I had just said to myself:  ’well I get devotions emailed to me everyday… I see God everyday… the bible scriptures seem to come to me while I am moving asking on this life… do I really need to pause to read??? I really am only idle when I write…. “… Well it was JUST then, immediately, that God ANSWERED my question. See, I’ve been cleaning out the shed and talking to God….you know idle hands do the Devils work, right? and for me moving hands frees my brain to think, and to talk with myself, and to talk with God. I had just finished getting the shed ready for somebody who is currently homeless and we are going to store some of his stuff. It’s okay we have some room. But that’s NOT why God blessed me in His attentiveness. That’s not why you are blessed. It is not the good works that cause God to give us Grace… We have it already. God made us human to get work done – He gave us two hands, two feet, a brain and He certainly gave us a mouth.   Sometimes we are to use our mouths to comfort and sometimes to keep quiet….when we know that we could say something, but the fact that we don’t speaks more volumes… Maybe we are to ask somebody everyday “where are you in your faith?”  and then shut up and listen..  I had just finished these GOD thoughts when I walking back to the house… it starts SNOWING! I stopped – cold – dead in my tracks. God, I really stopped, I was truly shaken to a stop… for two maybe three minutes looking at the small precious unique snowflakes.

Stopped IDLE in my tracks… looked up in tears and said:  “Thank you God, for the snow….Thank you God, for listening to me… Why did you choose me to witness your glory? Thank you God… for making me still and know that YOU ARE GOD.

Be STILL and KNOW that I AM GOD.

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More snow blogs:

In my last few days of awakening and not being at 100% yet with Jesus – I was an emotional softening heart… God knew me to place me with the right people, who knew His heart but didn’t know what was going on with me… here’s a crucial one:

https://debbieupper.blog/2015/12/23/and-god-sent-ice-18jan-32/

#32 (connected  to #31 before this)

This is an important follow up to last night’s post… It is not lost on me that while hot tea would be appropriate to drink here on the cozy couch by the Christmas tree (I wrote this after the Ice storm) that instead the extra drink from my kids’ happy meal is (yes) ICE tea…I am drinking ICE tea…

And God Sent ICE, 18Jan2015

After my fails at belaying and trusting during rock climbing, I couldn’t wait to get back this morning to try again. Luckily we stayed overnight; I had good therapy of silly moms until 1am, a good solid five hours sleep. We had 2 hours to climb in the morning. but I knew I had to leave an hour early to get to church class… and because of Girl Scout falling ill with fever, I was leaving even earlier – which meant only half an hour of climbing for my daughter… she was not happy at the least because rock climbing appears to be her life calling now…

But then God sent ICE. Icy freezing rain covering everything… Church  at 8 o’clock cancelled 9 o’clock canceled… I zip through social media , phone calls, texts … will my 10 o’clock class be cancelled too?.. prayerfully hoping (not that we should have left anyway because the roads were the worst…  shut down, many car pileups)…ICE…terrible to say, but the JOY as I knew they would cancel, and they did…I could tell my daughter that she could climb the whole two hours…and climb she did, wow she is amazing!

After the flurry of texting etc about church canceled, I turned my attention to myself…it was time to retrain, refocus, retest …it was time to belay again, this time I was so determined, practiced and said I will belay my own daughter…I will never take my eye off of her…I would give my whole hand to keep her from falling…not worry about a possible pinch like I got last night. Well, she was too exhausted, I asked for a volunteer…guess what?  The daughter of my friend who I left hanging last night when I pinched my hand…she is the one who volunteered…yes I would give my hand for this daughter too…

With steady, even-keeled serious Keith our trainer, by my side, we started the test…she climbed, I belayed, I gave her advice for foot holds…I had good technique Keith assured me…I didn’t take my eye off her… She was to randomly fall four times in my test…she did, I found the right position for my hands…I didn’t drop her or forget about her…I saw her safely back to the wall…and safely down when we were done. I passed. No, I didn’t make a fuss…quiet victory, humbled achievement.

Now that I am certified, and my daughter will be wanting to go to the climbing gym, I know there will be more pain and pinches ahead…but I have better technique, better focus…it is not just rock climbing I am taking about…it’s counseling, it’s reaching out to people, it’s LIFE. Focus on your technique, never lose sight of the climber, keep the faith, and pray for God’s guidance.

The ice gave me extra time to climb my personal mountain, made us slow down and not be over confident on our drive home… And on my ride home, one of my teenage passengers was named Grace. I drove home with Grace, the free and unmerited favor from God.

Thank God for the Ice and the Grace.

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And more with snow

https://debbieupper.blog/2015/12/23/rain-a-floating-rain-18jan-34/

so close to Feb 1st – God was softening my last ice blocks to 100% – I felt the ice jam ready to go…

https://debbieupper.blog/2015/12/23/weird-dreams-snow-and-jesus-26jan-41/