Thunder Snow

This morning as I awoke and rubbed my eyes, I sat up, startled by a sound I had never heard in January. I pulled aside the curtains and looked out my window. It was snowing. It was too warm to snow, nearly sixty degrees, but it was snowing. And then I heard it again. Thunder. I had heard of this phenomenon but never before had I experienced it. I watched as a single flash backlit the skeletal maples, oaks and white birch. In that brief instant, I’m sure even the birds stared up in awe and wonder. In one brilliant streak from the sky to the ground, under dawn’s waning full moon, amidst thunder and snow, I suddenly realized, it was a heavenly exclamation point. God had spoken.