Let it Snow!

The winter is on with full force!  Snow has made its appearance a few times already, and I fully expect to see more of it before February comes and goes.  Wayne and the kids have slid down every hill in town, and they thoroughly enjoy the prospects of more opportunities to go head first down the next mountain.  Personally, I think it's a little crazy.  I don't like to be cold, and I don't like to travel at ridiculous speeds uncontrollably downward with my head leading the way.  But each to his own...  I do, however, like to stay inside and make snow cream with the powdery snow that they bring to me.  Growing up, we always used a little sweetened condensed milk and a drop of vanilla.  In our home, we've done the same or done the next best thing by making a sort of shaved iced, using flavored syrups that we have on hand or juice concentrate.  Either way, the children enjoy a bowl of snow.

I'm not too keen on ice cream unless it's homemade.  Some of my fondest memories of my childhood involve food, of course, and the sweetest ones often involve hand-churned ice cream.  My parents have an old wooden ice cream bucket with a hand crank.  My Dad is the master of the churn!  I remember Mama mixing the luscious overly sweetened mix and pouring it into the canister.  Daddy would then pack ice all around, layering the ice with rock salt.  As a child, I didn't quite understand why in the world we wanted to melt the ice.  That was, indeed, the purpose of the salt.  I couldn't figure it out!  We were trying to freeze the cream, yet Daddy was intent on melting the ice!  It wasn't until some time in my teens that the whole concept made sense.  In order for the cream to get cold, the actual cold had to come from somewhere!  If we took the cold from the ice and re-directed it to the canister, the ice cream could become a reality.  (This is the simplified version of the science at work here.)

This reminds me of one of God's principles.  If we want to receive more in God's Kingdom, we must be willing to pour out all that we already have.  We have to think of our lives as pipelines of God's blessing rather than storehouses of good things.  We don't get to have...we get to give.

In Matthew 10:8, Jesus is speaking to His disciples, instructing them in the act of ministry.  He says, "Freely you have received, freely give." This carries the idea that we cannot just gather for ourselves and save for our own selfish purposes.  We are to be learning all that we can about God, His Word and His Spirit so that we can take it out to people who have the greatest needs.  God's Kingdom is not solely about building us up so that we have all the knowledge and the power and can sit around knowing that we are right.  Rather, God's Kingdom is about lives of servitude.  The ministry of Jesus was one of pouring out all that He had to the people around.  In this way, He was able to minister the love of the Father, and lives were changed.

In order to have rich and creamy ice cream, the cold has to be taken from the source and given to the cream.  The product is wonderful.  So is the product of the lives that can be changed when we are willing to be given out to the people in need around us.

Let is snow!  And then make some snow cream...


Favorite ice cream gadget:  Both Cuisinart and Krups (and I'm sure others) have ice cream machines where you keep the canister itself in the freezer.  When you want a little bit of ice cream, you can measure up just enough for your family and whip out a container of the good stuff.  It's electric, and cleanup is easy...no salt required! Why wait for summer?