[image: pumpkins, 2010, JA Van Devender]
Psalm 147:16–18 (NKJV)
16 He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes; 17 He casts out His hail like morsels; Who can stand before His cold? 18 He sends out His word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow, and the waters flow.
My dad did quite a bit of farming, "truck farming" as we called it, when I was very young. He was pretty good at growing things and not so good at turning a profit from them. His specialty was watermelons, "Dixie Queens" only, none of those longed striped varieties that he so despised. Some of them were huge, at least in the eyes of a four or five year old boy. They were easily as large as pumpkins and quite heavy. As far as I can remember he never grew a single pumpkin though. They just didn't fit his style I suppose.
Though we never raised them we did have a very common phrase for cold days... Mother would come in from the back-yard and comment that "there's frost on the pumpkins this morning." I haven't a clue why pumpkins were associated with the frost but that's what was said. Well, this morning, coming to work I was reminded of that old saying when I stepped out of my nice warm garage to crank up our cars and let them warm up and took a breath of that 3 degree air that was waiting for me. Talk about a wake up call! The first impulse is to gasp or take a deep breath... bad idea... frozen lungs are not a good way to start the morning. I think there actually is the remains of a pumpkin in our side yard, left over from T'giving, but I don't think there was any frost on it. I bet it was frozen solid.
All this is to say, of course, that the big news in this neck of the woods today is the record cold weather we are enduring. I am inclined to call up Al Gore and ask him how all that global warming business is working out for him but I don't imagine he is lacking such comments.
It's interesting that the Psalmist cries out "Who can stand before His cold" in the passage above. His song must have come to him as he looked out over a frozen landscape, covered in snow, with "frost" (poetically describing snow and ice) covering the ground like volcanic ash. How he must have shivered that day, not having the nice warm car to sit in or the cozy clothing which protect us from the wind-chill. No wonder he thought of God's invincibility in terms of that experience. Who can indeed stand, by himself, in such weather and not succumb, sooner or later, to its deadly effects. And yet is there anything to compare to the sight? The beauty that accompanies the terrifying reality. Hypothermia can kill in minutes and yet the stark contrasts and serene landscapes never fail to draw us to wonder.
I don't suppose there's much more to make of it. The same God who warms our hearts is the God who brings frigid winds. There is glory and wonder and fear, all proportionally appropriate and all essential to faith.
It's good to remember those things I suppose... but it's a lot better thinking those thoughts from where I sit than from where the Psalmist did in his time.
Thank you Lord for the cold. Now, please protect us from its fury.
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