I’m sitting on the porch eating my breakfast bagel watching the sun creep up the sidewalk getting closer to the porch. The purslanes in the cement urns are getting ready to open their blooms, waiting patiently for the sun’s first kiss of warmth to spread their petals wide, to show off their beauty and their glorious colors of vivid yellow and hot pink.

The lawn mowers just arrived at my house and the songbirds dispersed to the oak tree to wait and see if it’s safe to finish their sunflower seed breakfasts. A few yellow butterflies quickly leave as the lawn mowers crank. I see the shadows of the buzzards wings floating across my sidewalk, across the street, and up the wall over there till they disappear. I pushed back in the swing and counted six buzzards riding the wind currents, winding high in the beautiful blue sky, their silver wing tips highlighted by the sun’s rays.

Father Sky has sketched the sky full of white fluffy clouds. A few stray thin clouds look like he might have let a grandchild have command of his white pastel stick for a little while. The thin clouds disappeared and the fluffy clouds gather together holding hands and bunching around each other. The sun is bleaching them Clorox white, so pretty against the blue sky.

By time for the pageant of sunset, the cloud party had floated away and Mother Nature had painted the horizon a pale, pale blue, her brush strokes turning almost white in the highest sky. The sun burst on stage, bright and white with a halo of rainbow rays surrounding her. She reached for Father Sky’s arm and they walked down the subdued stage of sunset and took the day’s golden light with them. Twilight quietly plants a day ending kiss on the landscape and the night begins as the moon and stars turn on their night lights in the inky black sky.

As the sun set it beamed right on my hummingbird feeders and the sun’s reflection dyed the nectar a flaming pink, a color only Mother Nature’s watercolors could paint. How sad it must be to live in a world of black and white or to be color blind to God’s paintings. Nature’s colors are so resplendent in their myriad of shades. I love looking at the miniature wildflowers when I’m walking Penelope. I take note of the wondrous colors of their blooms, the delicate pinks and purples, the sunshine yellows and the snowy whites. I’m always thrilled when I find a new wildflower blooming. I can see God smiling in these little flowers. “God is in all creatures, even in the smallest flowers,” Martin Luther.

God has such command of his watercolors and shares his brushes with Mother Nature and Father Sky. When I see a breathtaking sunset I know there is a God in heaven. I can feel his wonder as I watch the sky become a magnificent watercolor painting as the sun rolls down the horizon. The colors start pale and then darken as the day begins to wane. The sun setting teaches us even the ending of a day can be as beautiful as the beginning of a day. Sunsets give us hope and are evidence of God’s goodness. Psalm 65:8 reads, “They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of your signs; You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.”

God’s glory is revealed in the sky and the clouds. We can see and feel his presence in a beautiful sunset. The sunsets and the sunrises are affirmations of God’s love. Sunsets remind me of our faith. We start off singing “Jesus Loves Me,” and memorizing the Lord’s Prayer at Sunday School. Our colors of faith are pure and clear. We learn simple prayers and as our faith colors we began to say our own prayers of thanksgiving. Our faith deepens over time, like the gloriously colored layers of the sunset, and we feel safe and content in God’s hands. Our prayer life matures and we’re thankful for each day and we look to God when our burdens are too heavy. Through our prayers we weather the storms of every day life and enjoy the colors of our path of faith. We live a life of color when we’re filled with God’s faithful spirit.

“Of all God’s gifts to the sighted man, color is holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.” — John Ruskin