He Makes Icicles

Sometimes I think in pictures and not words.

Somedays I go for a walk and admire something beautiful, I can’t find any words of my own.

Sometimes, I just remember the impression a piece of prose gave me without remembering the details exactly.

That’s the headspace I’ve been in.

There is a passage in the Silmarillion, which I’m too dumb to remember exactly, to the effect that whenever the devil sends bad things, God makes them beautiful. The enemy makes frost, and the Creator makes icicles. When I read that book as a girl I surely missed every point Tolkein was making, but I loved that image. And that was the image that was dancing through mind mind half-remembered as I went for walks this weekend. The car was still encased in snow and ice from Thursday night’s cataclysm and the roads were impassable until Sunday afternoon, so I walked instead of driving like the old days. And I took pictures.

Where the enemy makes ugly things, God makes beauty.

Where we build fences, He comes in anyway, and brings beauty.

Where we make messes, He makes icicles.

The rain falls on the just and on the unjust.

The Lord hears the cry of the poor, and blessed be the Lord.

Let us sing to the Lord, He has covered Himself in glory.  Horse and rider He has thrown into the sea.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

Even LaBelle can be beautiful, sometimes.

That’s a miracle beyond all telling.

Images taken by the author.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.
Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.