Six Butterflies

What a blessing today was!  Six women, six artists, six believers together for most of the day, sharing, laughing, planning, learning from one another and marveling together!  There is just something so precious when like-minded people get together, there is a buzz in the air that rivals the highest caffeine high ever!!
I took a moment amid the chattering happening, to look at us, each one so very unique in her own special way, yet we are alike in everything that counts.
There is Susan, dependable, responsible, generous, a woman exuding such warmth that you just want to bathe in her presence; Dana (head girl for the day !) caring, yet daring, fiery, with a streak of recklessness carefully hidden behind common sense; Marsha, witty, her engaging smile makes a person want to smile too; Jade, quiet, sincere, a bit careful, radiating a gentleness of spirit; Tina, her reliable and steady disposition masking a romantic, hippy spirit, and of course then there is me.  Each one of us represent our own special colour in life's landscape.
How blessed we are when we are surrounded with friends and family who love and value us just for who we are.  How sad when we hardly seem to notice the gift that is.
I want to take a few moments to celebrate every relationship I have in my life today, for each person has contributed his or her precious texture and hue to my masterpiece, completing me.  Without these relationships, whether big or small, brief or decades long, my life would have been all the poorer.
Look around you today, this week, and take stock of the people moving through your life.  Is it just chance, of little or no consequence?  Or does that unexpected smile lift your spirit, that casual hello give you pause, that kind look encourage you?  What role do you play in other people's lives?  Do you take a moment to share a smile with the tired cashier?  Do you pause to let an old lady cross the street?  Do you turn back despite your rush, just to give to husband another hug? Every encounter has the potential to change somebody's life, somebody's day, even if just for that moment.  A moment that can lead to an opportunity to testify, to enrich another life.
Six women together for a day.  A blessing indeed.  I feel enriched to have shared my day with them.  Six butterflies fluttering through the canvas of my life.