Beauty Sleep

I wrote this last night and then forgot to post it. Proof of how tired I was...

It's late. It's been a long day. My dog is snoozing at my feet and she looks so comfortable. Tomorrow will be a busy day; I'm preparing to speak at a ladies' retreat on Saturday. The topic? The beauty around us.

As I sit here thinking through so many moments of beauty I've experienced and written about, I don't know if I've ever written about nighttime. Moonlight, yes, but darkness? No. The truth is, I don't often walk outside at night. We have coyotes in our neighborhood and, now that the weather is warming up, the snakes will be out as well. While it's true that coyotes and snakes have a certain beauty, I have no desire to meet either one in the dark (or even in the noonday sun).

But there are so many things I like about nighttime:
1. quiet
2. rest and rejuvenation
3. relief
4. reading (a ritual before "lights out")
5. pajamas
6. cool sheets in the summer, thick comforter in the winter
7. the gentle whirr of the ceiling fan
8. the end of the day
9. checking on my daughter while she's asleep
10. the art in our bedroom (the mixed media pieces over the dresser and the bed, the pencil drawing of my ballerina done by a friend, the metal cross sculpture)
11. the vintage furniture (Grandmother's chair and chiffarobe, a cedar chest, a lady's writing desk, an armchair I rescued and refurbished)
12. and last but not least by any means--my husband

But maybe the thing that's the most important is knowing that tomorrow is a new day. I'm not quoting Scarlett here but paraphrasing the Bible, Lamentations 3:23 to be exact: "God's compassions [mercies] are new every morning." Knowing that I can start over with Him every day--now that gives me sweet dreams, and, I guess you could say, true beauty sleep.