Walked Penelope this morning right before the rain began. A heavy shower, big leaf bending drops, fell from a cigar smoke overcast sky, slapping the sidewalk and the tin roof next door. The sun is doing her best trying to push her bright yellow face through the clouds. She’s almost visible, her golden rays getting brighter as the rain continues. I can smell the Earth as she drinks in the silver life giving raindrops. No wind to tune up the wind chimes, just the beat of the rain’s symphony drums playing. When I sat down in the swing to eat my cereal, I looked at the blueberries and strawberries piled up in my red polka dotted bowl and thought, “Guess I like a little cereal with my fruit.”

Finally came across a quote, a Spanish proverb, that resonates with me. “How beautiful it is to do nothing and rest afterwards.” That thought describes me today. Haven’t done anything but enjoy my perch in the swing and watch the rain fall from a lightly gray clouded sky. I read somewhere that “doing nothing and wasting time are not the same thing.” Been thinking about that difference and what wasting time really is. When I think of wasting time I think of idleness, goofing off, procrastinating. Bertrand Russell said, “The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” Boss Lady quotes that too. Stephen Covey says, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” I’m trying to figure out the main thing. Is the main thing faith in God? I don’t know. I guess we need to find the one thing that matters the most to us and that’s our “main thing.” I think this needs some more serious pondering.

Several colorful butterflies flew through the porch during the rain showers. I was thinking they would sit out the rain showers on the porch urn flowers but they flitted and danced through, bravely flying back out into the rain. Butterflies remind us to be patient, to wait for the good things in life that take time to transpire. Butterflies teach us to embrace change, reminding us to not take life so seriously, to be free to enjoy our our moments in the sun. We’re on a brief journey on planet Earth and we never know what tomorrow will bring. We should live our days with our fellow travelers with hope and love, treating them as we want to treated, showing kindness and compassion. Butterflies remind us there is beauty after pain. We all have to be a caterpillar before we can become a butterfly in faith.

Life really is wonderful. Just to wake up with breath for another day is a miracle. Life is not always what we want it to be but we always have our faith, our families, our friends. We all have days that can’t pass fast enough, days full of so much beauty and truth we wish them to last forever. We’re not promised smooth sailing on the sea of life and how boring these journeys would be without some storms to weather to show us God is in control. These stormy days and dark times give hope and the promise of God’s rainbow.

Life is not perfect but there are some perfect things in life. Life travels on a road that goes up and down and all around, like the joyous flight of a butterfly. Some days we have a perfect road to travel. Some days we don’t. On days the road gets rocky or we lose our way, we are comforted by our faith that assures us God is near. He will travel with us and guide us in the right direction.

“Life isn’t meant to be lived perfectly…but merely to be lived. Boldly, wildly, beautifully, uncertainly, imperfectly, magically lived.” ― Mandy Hale