Fragile Wings

There are monarch butterflies in my backyard. We usually see a few this time of year as they travel down the shore of Lake Michigan, but this early autumn they have alighted in our pine trees and transformed our yard into a butterfly garden.

I believe that God sends us reminders when we have faced so many difficult times that it's hard to believe we will ever feel happy again.

This year the hydranga bushes that line the back of my mother's house exploded with blooms. The thing is - they had never bloomed before! I know because we discussed it every year, how big and beautiful the bushes were, but no blooms, and this went on for eight or nine years. This year, after she died in early spring, they bloomed; big pink, flat blossoms that lasted throughout the summer.

And now I have monarch butterflies in my yard. Orange and black creatures that seem too fragile to travel any distance at all. I don't know how long they will stay, and what the journey ahead holds for them, but I'm grateful they came to give me this gentle reminder that life goes on, that beautiful days can and will happen.

A message carried on fragile wings to a grateful heart.