Finding beauty

So this past week a close family friend passed away. She was my mother's art teacher and I had a few lessons with her myself on occasion. She was one of the sweetest and most Christlike people I have ever met and one of her best traits was (is) that she is able to find beauty in everything and everyone. During the funeral service, one of her daughters shared memories of how the family would be driving in the car and their mother would yell "Stop!!". They always thought it was a UFO or something noteworthy, but it was usually just a really cool looking stump or that she wanted to observe how the light was hitting the sagebrush in a certain way (you can see why she was an artist). Often times when I would be painting with her I'd bemoan that my experiment looked ugly or that I needed to start over. She'd help me look at it from a different perspective or throw in an accent color and suddenly I could see the beauty that she had seen the potential of all along. Her funeral service today was not only filled with stories of her being able to see the beauty in God's creations, but also in God's children. She loved those that others cast aside, she helped them find their inner artist, their inner beauty, their inner best self. The flower arrangement on her coffin was a perfect tribute to these qualities: it contained sagebrush (at her request) and used brushes from her artist friends whose lives she had touched and it was one of the most beautiful arrangements I've ever seen. My mother is very much like her in that she always took time to stop and point out the beauty in the world to me. I've learned much from my mother and much from Colleen and today renewed me with a determination to ALWAYS look for the beauty and potential in all things and in everyone.

'Early Evening' by Colleen

'Rising' by Colleen