Beautiful Snowflakes

This morning at preschool, I taught the children how to make simple paper snowflakes. They enjoyed it very much, and I loved seeing them enjoy it!

To make a snowflake, you need to fold a square piece of paper a few times. Then all you need to do is cut out small shapes. When you have finished, you open up the paper, and you have a beautiful snowflake.

Thinking about it this evening, I realized that our lives are like that square of folded paper. We also get "cut." Trials are like scissors that snip pieces out of our lives. Any kind of loss that we experience is like a painful snip.

What we don't always realize is that the snips are necessary to being a beautiful and useful person. Without them, we'd be like a plain piece of paper. 

What matters is that our lives have been put in the hands of the One who cuts out of love. If our lives are not in His hands, we may simply become a square of paper that is snipped to pieces.

If our lives are submitted to God, He won't allow any more snips than necessary. 

Each one of the children's snowflakes was different and beautiful. And so, in our lives, we all have a different mixture of trials to make us into a unique person.

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.--Romans 5:3-5