"He whispers through what we often overlook"
Jack Frost Making Mischief Again
I woke this morning to the sound of neighbours scraping frost from their car windscreens. With –3° showing on my temperature gauge, my thoughts drifted back to childhood mornings in Govan, when my mother would gently rouse me and announce that “Jack Frost was out.” Through my childhood lens, these expressions felt strange even odd. But it coloured everyday life in a Northern town.
Only years later, while studying Children’s Literature, did I discover just how many “Jacks” inhabit our stories: Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack-o’-Lantern, Jack-in-the-box. In folklore, the name often stood for the ordinary man—an archetype, a familiar figure who could slip easily into any tale.
Jack Frost, though, carried a character all his own: a personification of winter, playful at times, mischievous at others. Parents in places like Glasgow often used him to make sense of the frozen patterns on windows or to bring a little wonder into dark winter mornings. Through these stories, the cold world outside felt somehow alive, touched by imagination.
Historically, the name “Jack Frost” appears in English poetry in the 19th century, including a well-known poem attributed to James Whitcomb Riley in the 1880s, though its authorship remains debated.
For much of my life I imagined frost as a mostly northern or mountainous phenomenon, but when I began reading the Bible, I found frost woven quietly into Scripture. When God speaks to Job, He asks:
“From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost of heaven?”
—Job 38:29–30
Even the coldest, smallest details of creation are shown to be shaped by His hand.
And in Exodus 16:14, when God provides manna in the wilderness, it appears “as a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.” Something delicate, fleeting, yet faithfully renewed each morning.
It’s striking how often frost—so fragile it vanishes at a touch—carries meaning in both memory and Scripture. And perhaps that is its quiet gift: a reminder that God is present in the smallest corners of creation. Even in something as thin and temporary as a frost-flake, He speaks. He whispers through what we often overlook, inviting us to notice the ordinary with fresh eyes—and to find wonder waiting there.
Image by Copilot