Nina Thrasher

Painted colors flood my mind with a tide of fresh ideas. Beauty is simple and pure and divined in majestic individuality. Ugliness is a word of placed judgment and usually beheld as an opinion, while in actuality it is our mirror we see in everything, and all reflects back to us what we are. If something or someone is deemed unfit for tolerably pleasure filled sight, it is upon those that see it so to embrace that image for their own. For they have recognized it for themselves. Is it not fantastic that society esteems beauty in only a very few models, when in reality every person and every thing is beautiful just as it also allows an element of ugliness. We live in a world of dualities and for everything that is good there is also a bad.

I want to notice God more. I know He is all around me, I just want to be aware of His presence in a more present sort of way. These past couple of years we have had purple Mexican petunia flowers blooming every day in front of our house. By late afternoon, all the day’s blooms would fall off, only to be replaced by a new batch the very next day. I mean, a bunch of flowers. I guess I took them for granted, because this year we have hardly seen any. The weather was very dry this Spring. And so, I have missed seeing the purple blooms in a way I didn’t think I would. I have missed pointing them out to my older daughter, Petal. I have missed how fresh and full they are in the morning, and how limp and withering they turn by afternoon. I have missed the way they framed the front of our house. I have missed the little miracle of their daily blooms and their reminder of God’s creation and the passing of time. If they come again next year, I will notice them, indeed. And they will make me think of God. Tonight I watched, mesmerized, as my five month old daughter, Eden, fell asleep. Her perfect little face, the eyes getting more and more sleepy, happily slurping down her bottle. This little creation of my womb, is, I know, God’s greatest creation. I, am God’s greatest creation. We are all God’s greatest creation. If I can notice a fallen flower after the heat of the day and see God’s hand at work, then I must be able to recognize the work of God’s hand in the stranger, the lover, the mother, the child, in each and every one of us. I would like to be able to notice God in you, dear reader, at all times. I hope not to need to remind myself of this. I would like to reach a point where I recognize God in all people all the time. That is a great reach, however, when I remember how many times I didn’t even look at the petunias, and I don’t even make eye contact with so many people. Since I want to notice God more, I think that I will begin with the flowers. Each time I see a flower, I will remind myself that God made it. Next, my children and my husband are God’s gift to me. I can see God in them at all times. My extended family I do love and that should not be too hard, either, to remember their divinity. Beyond that, I will need some work at recognizing how great God is in all that he has created. I pray that I will be more aware of God in so many things, but most of all, in myself.