December 8, 2012, I went with my wife and kids and our dogs to a park to hike around. It snowed a little that day, enough to frost the grass with a nice powdered sugar coating.

Before we began I prayed out loud inviting God to come play with us. I didn’t really know what I even meant by that, let alone even trying to think what its like to play with God. I mean, what does God do for fun? Raise the dead? Create more stars?

Well that day we hiked out a little farther than I was even planning and sat together under a tree the kids and I have climbed before. The puppies started exploring the nearby ponds and the kids sat with Betsy and I as we just looked around at our beautiful surroundings.

Then suddenly it began to snow quite heavily with huge snowflakes. None of us had any real snow gear on so we started heading back. But on the way up a small hill I looked down and noticed the snow gathered pretty easily on my boot, so I quickly gathered some and threw it at my family. I wasn’t even close, but it inspired my sons to join in and my wife and daughter were easy targets for them. I then got down on my knees and started rolling a snowball around just to make it a little bigger but to my surprise it got bigger and bigger. I didn’t know there was enough snow to make a snow man, but I kept at it and soon I had a bona fide base. When the kids saw that, it was on. They all wanted me to make them a snow man.

We played in the snow for a long time, my knees were numb but it didn’t matter. Finally exhausted cold and wet we headed back and noticed the snow had stopped. By the time we got to our car it was virtually all gone, even the powered sugar coating. I then realized how God plays with His kids.

-Brian Carter