The Desert and the Snowflake

Words...

A word, a single word, can mean nothing or everything.  Just one word can be plucked from the sea and placed on a white sheet of paper and that one word can be looked at, pondered, and contemplated for a hundred lifetimes.  

A string of words can have the power to raise nations or destroy a life.

I've been told I have a way with words, a way that is both entertaining and fluid... but as I sit here wanting to write what is in My heart today no words come.

Well, they come, they come in droves but as I begin to put them down they seem so insignificant, so void of the emotion I wish for them to hold.  

Can you put words to these dreams, hopes, feelings, and joy?  Is it truly possible?  Or is there a point where words simply don't work anymore?

I don't know that I can answer that.... I've been left speechless.  What comes to mind though I would like to try to convey... My hope is that you see, through this, what you mean to Me.


The shimmering midday heat found her standing on the edge of a crescent dune.  To the east, a sleek slope with nearly glassy crystals of sand glimmering amid the golden grains to the ground.  The west, rippled with waves as the seashore would when the tides rolled in.  

Looking just ahead to the large desert rock that jutted from the earth like a mountain among the plains.  She knew it wasn't but just large enough to get her body into a bit of shade but in that moment to her it was as a castle.  She had only a few hundred feet and she would be there.   She began again to walk slowly. determined.

Her last drop of tepid water had been sipped what seemed to be eons past.  Her skin flaked like old bark from the Maple tree in her backyard at home.   Her lips now swollen, dry, and cracked resembled the scorching sands beneath her feet.  As she lifted her fingers to touch them she found herself wondering if she would be lost out here forever... if she would perish in this desert wasteland after all.

She'd been sure this was the most efficient way to get to her promise land.  She knew it would be an expedition of great challenges and insurmountable difficulties but she believed the journey would be worth it when she had reached her paradise. The hours turned to days and they seemed to be spend between dunes where her footsteps left no trace.  Where she had come from mirrored where she was going and every dune looked much the same.

With every slow and deliberate step it appeared she was further away from that rock she'd been seeing for the longest while.  Suddenly she thought to herself about the mirages she'd been warned about... was this little respite nothing more than her mind tricking her into spurring on?  Could she trust herself any longer?  Did it matter anymore, she had to go somewhere.... anywhere... Her eternal happiness, she knew,  was just beyond this forsaken inferno so she pressed on.

Praying, to whoever or whatever would listen, she asked a simple request.... 'please give Me respite even for a brief moment.  Please let it rain even but a second.'.   Yet the silence seemed to mock any hope she had.... but then....

Then after days and days of wandering the desert she felt something?  Was it real, was that what she'd prayed for?  Rain without a cloud in sight?   It was but one single drop to her skin, a feeling of glorious life among the death about her.  

Shielding her eyes from the sun she looked up and out over the expanse of the skies but what she saw she could not believe, not for a moment.  A single delicate white snowflake fluttered down just above her nose.  Blinking her eyes in disbelief she tried to focus but the more she tried the harder it was to see.  Another drop against her shoulder and another running down her arm; it was raining, it really was but she couldn't look away from this apparition in front of her.  She dared not reach out for it or move at all, lest it disappear along with the rain it seemed to bring.  So she stood, still, nearly lifeless, waiting for some spark of intelligence to direct her in what to do.

As if the snowflake read her thoughts and understood it inched forward pressing in toward her lips. She still didn't move, watching and knowing somehow that this unique little piece of frozen water, clearly out of it's element, was here just for her.   She painfully parted her lips as the tip of her tongue slid from behind them.   The white fluff of the snowflake caught the suns rays and shown like a diamond for but a second before landing on that tongue awaiting it so eagerly.   

Closing her eyes as she drew back her tongue she thanked the snowflake silently for bringing her salvation.... then, the heavens opened and the rains filled the desert as she danced and laughed.