Filling the Measure of My Creation

The trees were laden from last week’s snowfall, yet they looked regal; it was as if the piles of snow on their branches were in reality crowns of sparkling jewels.

My friends let me lead our group of snowshoers, even though it was my first time. I stayed at the front of the group, my snowshoes flipping powder through the muffled air as I forged ahead through the snow banks and twigs. How odd to be walking among bushes and shrubs that were actually the tops of trees. Somehow the others fell behind, and I found myself alone on the edge of an expanse of untouched snow. I still don’t know how it sparkled so brilliantly even without direct sunlight. I turned around to yell to the others about my discovery, but my inner five-year-old threw me backwards so that I was lying with my face to the sky, snow slipping past my hood, my breath clouding above me as I laughed aloud. By the time they arrived, it was no longer a pristine patch of snow.

We kept trekking. I only made it up the hills by crawling on my knees, and the down hills were exhilarating as I jumped straight off the drifts into snow banks. Eventually we worked our way to the base of a steep slope with imposing pines and lofty peaks.

I gazed in awe. I literally stood all amazed—the snow-covered cliffs around us, the kingly pine trees, the deep blue of the sky overhead. It made me feel minuscule, and yet all important. After all, this was created for me, right?

My mind went to the beginning of time and the end of time. I wondered what Heavenly Father thought as He shaped such majestic mountains and what those mountains would look like by the time the earth reached old age. I wondered what Heavenly Father thought as He shaped such a normal little girl and what I would look like by the time I reached old age. I wondered who I would become before that time came.

In a devotional from many years ago, George Tate stated, “Creation is not complete until we have fulfilled the measure of our creation. . . . It does not reach its plenitude without our collaboration, our laboring with the Lord in his work, without what we do and what we create.”

I am not like the mountains, dependent on fault lines and landslides to determine my exterior. I am not like the trees, reliant on the whims of the wind to place my seed. I am not a passive bystander observing the landscape of my life. I am a co-creator, creating and refining myself day by day. The Lord’s creative process didn’t just end once the light was separated from the dark or once the six days were up. No, it continues through me from the moment my alarm goes off in the morning to the moment I produce forgiveness toward somebody who cuts in front of me in traffic to the moment I put down my phone and create a conversation with the person next to me in the grocery store.

Creation is more than just an organization of particles; it is a daily decision to become more like my Heavenly Father. As I use my agency to progress toward my divine potential, I fulfill the measure of my creation.