I’ve always loved sunsets.
In the frenetic craziness of my day to day life, I rarely take the time to actually watch the last fragment of sun kiss the horizon good night.
Arizona summer sunsets are stunning.
The only solace I find in the blast furnace heat of June is knowing when the monsoon rains start, God will begin to paint the Arizona sunset sky with a minute by minute palette of colors that could never be captured by one painting.
You’d have to have hundreds of them to show the transition from the yellows and oranges perfectly measured among the ripples, brushstrokes and jet streams in the sky, to the brilliant reds and even deep purples that fade into the night as the painting slowly fades into the darkness of a star lit summer sky.
I think those sunsets are God’s gift to remind us to slow down for just a few seconds and admire the free show of beauty that is there if we just look up.
I remember looking to sunsets for evidence that the next infertility cycle was going to work. Maybe a cloud shaped like a bow with a tinge of pink meant a little girl was on the way.
Silly, I know, but I found myself looking up a lot more to the sky just to shift my perspective from everything directly in front of or behind me.
I don’t look up as much as I did during those days.
So busy staring at a computer screen, texting, planning, making to lists, watching some TV show or movie, or engaged in the myriad of activities that take up so much of my day.
Tonight for a few yellow sky filled moments, I heard the second hand ticking with less urgency.
I heard myself breathing.
The racing in my mind stopped for a break.
Time slowed down.