Life is full of beauty, love, and blessings. It is also full of trials, temptations and sorrow. I want you to picture for a minute that you are sitting on a bench (or maybe a comfy chair, whichever you choose) in the middle of your happy place. Maybe that bench is in the middle of a beautiful park, or up on a mountain with no one around. Maybe it is on the beach or overlooking a lake. It is wherever you are happiest.
Now picture that as you sit there minding your own business a beautiful butterfly comes and lands near you. Do you notice it? You are already surrounded by beauty so maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Either way, it’s there.
Now picture that a bunch of these butterflies come and land by you. You would probably notice them then, right? You would take in their beauty and admire their unique traits. You would watch them interact and fly around noting the added beauty they bring to an already rich scene.
Now lets move your location to a dreary, drab, dead location. Insert picture of the Elephant Graveyard from The Lion King into your mind. If you are sitting there and single butterfly comes and lands near you, are you going to notice it? YES!!! To finally see such beauty in such a dull place you would absolutely notice it. You would be in awe with the colors and grace it shows, enjoying every minute you get to experience such beauty before it flies away.
When life is going well and we are surrounded by beauty and blessings it can begin to be hard to notice the smaller blessings that are in our life. We are so grateful our house is not falling apart and our job is going well, our kids are doing great in school, our cars are not breaking down, the weather is ideal and we are finding all the time to get everything done on our to do list. In such a perfect world though we would often forget to enjoy the little things throughout the day. How grateful we are that the toilet did not over flow today and the car started so easily. How humbled we are that our kids are healthy and striving and you just got that promotion at work. We forget to have gratitude that things went smoothly enough today to check off every item of our to do list for a change.
You see, that’s why we rarely live in our “happy place”. If we lived there all the time, it would no longer be our happy place. When the cold weather has been lingering for 4 months we can’t wait to feel the sun kissing our bare skin, only to have 3 more months pass and find ourselves wondering when the weather will finally cool off so it can actually feel like fall. We have to CHOOSE to look for the blessings in our current circumstances because our circumstances are constantly changing. Thankfully, they are always changing.
Unfortunately, more often then we wish, we have to live in the Elephant Graveyard. Lucky for us, we don’t have to stay there forever. While we are there though, we can look for butterflies and soak up every second with their beauty before they fly away. Maybe your butterfly is a friend showing they care, or a stranger smiling at you. Maybe it is the weather working out in your favor or a moment of gratitude that you have your five senses. Sometimes the only blessing we can see is that God made our days short so they can come to an end, give us a couple hour break, and start over again anew.
At times the butterflies may seem to come few and far in between while other times you seem to be surrounded by them. Occasionally, you may find yourself lucky enough to be removed completely from the Elephant Graveyard and find yourself in your happy place and when you do, don’t forget to continue to look for those butterflies. They never stop coming. They are there in the good and there in the bad. Sometimes there is still only one and a time but it’s there. It’s beauty is the same whether on it’s own or in a group. Do you notice it?
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