Frost

As I walk outside one cold morning, I'm struck by the gorgeous frost on the ground and on the weeds.

Frost is a unique and beautiful aspect of creation and an interesting meteorological condition.

For frost to form, the air temperature needs to drop below the dew point. The dew point is the temperature at which the air can no longer hold the moisture it’s carrying.

Think of heat as vibration. The hotter something becomes, the faster the molecules vibrate. It’s like a dance party—if people are dancing fast or jumping around and you throw some beach balls into the crowd, those beach balls bounce off the people and stay up in the air. The beach balls are held up by the action of the people. But when a slow song comes on and people move less, the beach balls fall to the floor. There is less action to hold up the beach balls.

The same is true of moisture in the air. Our air always holds a certain amount of moisture. The amount of water molecules air can hold depends on the speed at which the air molecules are vibrating. If the air molecules slow down, they simply can’t hold up the water molecules anymore and the water falls.

During the evening, the temperature usually cools. As the sun goes down, the heat on the earth’s surface rises high into the atmosphere and out to space. What that means is that the air at ground level begins to cool off and can no longer hold as much moisture. Water molecules begin to drop, collecting on the ground as dew.

When the temperature is below freezing, something beautiful happens to that dew. Water is a polar molecule, which means one end of the molecule has a slightly positive charge and the other has a slightly negative charge, like a magnet. This means that water, when it freezes into a solid, tends to organize itself in a very specific way to form ice crystals. We see these crystals as frost. These molecules begin to stack up on each other, creating gorgeous crystalline patterns.

It's all due to the geometry of the water molecule that God designed. It allows these molecules to join together and form unique shapes and patterns.

This reminds me of our churches. Each one is unique, with its own gathering of people with different gifts, talents, and struggles. But the people in each congregation are designed to fit together. God created humans as social beings, and we are usually drawn to community, much like these water molecules are drawn to each other.

Next time you gather in your community, be like a water molecule. Look around, and don’t just recognize the uniqueness of each individual—recognize the uniqueness of your community!