I’m not sure where you live, but chances are good you’ve heard about the northern lights. I’m also guessing that you remember several weeks when pictures were posted ALL over the internet, from places that never thought they’d see those lights.
In my attempt to capture those lights, something unexpected happened and really changed my perspective on how I want to see things from here on out.
It had been a week. One of THOSE kinds of weeks. A glance at the calendar was showing the next would likely be the same, filled with places that had to be gone to, phone calls that had to be made to places like the insurance company, playing phone tag with doctors, and I just wasn’t getting anything done that I needed to. It was all survival.
Chances are you’ve had days like that and can fully understand the stress and overwhelm, and the simple fact that none of that mattered. Things HAD to be done. There was no other choice.
Although I was exhausted, while in bed I remembered a few more things I needed to urgently do the next morning and went to check they were on my phone. Well, my finger slipped, and Facebook opened. And I started seeing pictures. Amazing pictures. Right where I lived. The northern lights!
Curious, I raced down the stairs, threw open the front door and saw nothing. So, I went to the back door. The sky was pink. I gaped for a second, raced back into the house, up the stairs, got my teen out of bed, woke up my husband (who later admitted he was so tired he thought he just saw a sunset. At midnight.) but let the youngest sleep.
Once we stepped outside and I showed them, I thought, my phone! Let me get a photo! So, I raced back upstairs (I was getting my late night exercise, phew!) and as I got back outside, my husband and teen went back to bed. I aimed my camera here and there, and eagerly looked at the images. Nothing. It wasn’t picking up anything! Just black sky that was blurry. And now, the bright pinks had faded dramatically.
But that wasn’t right! I’d taken photos, so what had gone wrong? What I saw wasn’t showing up. Why? I fumbled around and changed a setting on my phone. Still nothing. Beyond disappointed, I walked back to the house, snapped one last photo, but didn’t even look at it. What was the point? The others sure hadn’t worked.
Back in bed, I was feeling upset and frustrated. How come everyone else was seeing these amazing things? And getting incredible pictures, and I wasn’t?
I scrolled through those four photos, intending to delete them, when I saw it. The last one I’d taken. It showed the colors. In a place where it had been dark.
So, I dashed down the stairs, rushed out the back door, camera in hand. I stood and snapped photo after photo of the night sky, looking like it usually did. All dark, and starry. Then, I looked at my photo roll.
Colors. Pinks, and greens. Things that hadn’t appeared to my eyes.
All of that beauty was right there. It had been right there the whole time, just I hadn’t seen it. It wasn’t that I didn’t notice it. But that I couldn’t see it because I didn’t have the right lens.
How many times do we look and someone and think how amazing they are? So beautiful, so perfectly put together? But are they looking at themselves through that same lens, I wonder. I don’t think they are. We are always critical of ourselves.
Those are the characters I like to write about. The ones who are special, just don’t know it yet. Just like each and every one of us is…even if we don’t always see it.
Today, I’d love to give away to one reader a copy of a book, just where that exact thing happens.
In Romancing the Wrangler, Rose is sure she’s ugly. She’s let her mother’s criticisms make her feel like she has no good qualities. She feels like she isn’t good enough, and that her parents don’t love her. That’s the lens she sees things through. Levi’s feeling something similar, and doesn’t understand why his family is forcing him to do what they want.
I’m not going to spoil anything for you, but it really struck me how the fact that such beauty in the sky could be seen, but only through a different lens, made me wonder what else I’ve been missing out on, and how many times my frustrations and difficulties have made me miss out on something beautiful.
Rose and Levi experience that too.
I hope that as July starts out for you, it’s filled with beauty and joy, even if it’s simply in something small that you do for yourself. You are 100% worth it to have that. You might not see your own beauty, but I’m sure others do.
I’ll announce my winner this evening, so please watch so I can get your contact info! To enter for a chance at an ebook of Romancing the Wrangler, I’d just love to know: What’s something you find beauty in?
Sarah is wife to an amazing teacher and mom to two boys who are growing up just a little too fast. She spends her days working and writing in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
I find beauty in nature, like flowers.
denise
I do too! Each flower is so unique.
Birds singing/chirping especially in the morning, fireflies at night, deer playing in our field, flowers
Ohhh yes!! I love the birds in the morning and the fireflies!
animals
That’s a good one!!
That was a beautiful post. I find beauty in the morning stillness before the busyness of the day sets in. Thanks for the chance to win a copy of your book.
The morning stillness…I agree! I don’t usually have time for that before everyone’s away, but there is a beauty in that!
nature all around us, early mornings and evenings when the llamas pronk all around!! (they jump stiff legged like baby goats!)
Awww! Those sound adorable! I’ve never seen one in person!!
I live in Central Minnesota and enjoy everything it has to offer during the four seasons of each year. But exceptional beauty to me are the mountains in Wyoming and Montana.
It’s fortunate to have four seasons! I appreciate that myself, as so many places don’t have that!! I also love mountains!
Being in the mountains and seeing them.
Yes! Mountains are so beautiful!
I find beauty in small things: seashells, rocks, flowers and in big things: sunsets, snow capped mountains and watching the ocean waves, and unexpected places like the words of an old hymn.
In the unexpected places…that’s beautiful!
I find beauty in the fact that God gives me another day, hour or minute to look for it all around me.
That is well said! And when we look for it, we find it!
What a lovely post, Sarah. I am often guilty of failing to look up and appreciate the beauty around me because I’m ultra-focused on my to-do list. Thank you for the reminder to have open eyes and pause once in a while. 🙂
It’s so easy to think we’ll have time to do something later, because we are so busy right now! I’m guilty of it too!!
I think in nature – birds, flowers, sunsets.
Those are all beautiful! And no two are the same!
I like everything about nature. I like to go on walks with old forests.
Ohh yes! There’s something amazing about an old forest!
Nature in the middle of a city.
I’m so glad that exists, too!
I find beauty in little things. It might just be a text message, or it could be a card coming from a FB friend that I haven’t met in person, or it could be a flower blooming outside my front door. It could even be when I wake up hearing a bird’s song first thing in the morning.
Those are all wonderful things!
I never get tired of seeing the Smoky Mountains, no matter the weather. I love that area. I used to live in Townsend, TN, and I wish I had never left. It is my dream to go back again before my time is up on this earth. The mountains, the flowers, the flowing streams as they trickle over the rocks. It is so serene and beyond beautiful and quiet. It must be near to what Heaven will be like. Your story sounds very intriguing and I look forward to reading it. Have a great Fourth.
All of that is beautiful, especially the water trickling over rocks.
My grandchildren’s smiles
Ohh not much can top that, especially when you put it there!
Music and nature
Yes! Both are beautiful and very needed!
I really enjoyed your comments about beauty. I try to see beauty in all of God’s creation.
God made so many incredible things, there’s beauty in so much!
The northern lights are very beautiful!
They really are! So are those incredible rainbows in the clouds that others are sharing as of late!
Thank-you for this article and this is what I found beauty in.
You are so sweet! Thank you!
There is so much beauty all around. We find it in nature, both in the little things like a flower blossom or in the grandeur of the National Parks. I also find it in the innocence of little children. They accept people as they are, seeing beyond social class, race, religion. It is wonderful to watch and hope it lasts as long as possible before they are influenced by social pressures and prejudices.
I hope you and your family have a wonderful 4th of July. Stay cool.
You are right, beauty is everywhere! I hope you have a wonderful 4th as well!
I find beauty in spending time with my family. I grew up attending family get together and loved it. My own children have married and moved out of state so I cherish any time we can be together.
I’m sure that’s always wonderful when you can be together again! I hope you’ll be able to do that soon.
I find beauty in my faith, family and friends.
I do too. Those are so important!
thank you for sharing. hope you see and experience beauty around you this summer also. I love to see beauty and put it into quilts and cards. quilting dash lady at comcast dot net
It sounds like you are so talented! Quilting is a talent I admire!
My wife and I went out to see the Northern Lights. We loved the view. Our Samsung phones adjusted the timing to take more like and our results were amazing. It is always nice to be reminded that there are things greater than ourselves. We need to stop and look around us. We rarely go a day without having said how beautiful the beauty of the Montana sky. We are known as, “Big Sky Country.”
I have a Samsung phone too! I suspect there was a lot of user error on my part! I have heard many good things about Montana! I bet it’s beautiful there.
Days late, and I know you’ve been discovering amazing things with your phone–as do I, constantly. Not always what my eye captures, but exciting images, nonetheless. Serendipity (since instructions tend to be next to nonexistent on these remarkably complex devices that practically rule our lives) plays a large part, but your openness to new sights, sounds, and experiences, means you are far more likely to find them. Bless you for sharing! Being a sister Samsung-shutterbug, I am constantly finding delightful things to bring joy into my life. Thank you for inviting us to participate!