beauty in the background

So as my wife has noted, illness has descended on our home. Kids are sick, Tara is beginning to feel "rough" and as for me? I think I'm close, but if I'm careful I might be able to sidestep most of it...

I was up relatively early with Olivia, around 6:30 or so. As I looked out the dining room window, the sun was just starting to paint all the undersides of the thin clouds that more vibrant sunrise pink. It was really pretty. I didn't snap a picture so you actually have to use your imagination here. As I was looking at it all part of me wanted to move the houses and the power lines and the other "clutter" that was getting in the way of the pretty scene in front of me.

Then it occurred to me, "beauty in the background". Even with sick kids, today is a new day. Despite the clutter in front of us, there is beauty in the background. It forms a sense of hope for me. That even with all the stuff in front of us, you can still see beauty. It still causes me to wonder at how a little pink on the bottom of clouds (pink of all colors!) can evoke these thoughts. How when another morning begins, if we watch for it, something beautiful will be there, in the background. You could easily miss it. I almost did. I almost didn't open the blinds, almost didn't stop to see what the morning looked like.

I found this verse and thought I'd share it. Hope that even with sickness and clutter, you see the beauty of today.

Proverbs 4:18 (New Living Translation)

¹⁸ The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn,
which shines ever brighter until the full light of day.

New Living Translation (NLT)

Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.