(WARNING: Extreme sappiness ahead…)

Jodi and I just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary, and we’re more in love than ever! But no matter how much our love grows and deepens, our wedding day will always be one of the most special days of our lives.

We spent over a year planning it, making sure that every detail represented us and our love–from the setting (a mountaintop outside of our house in Jemez Pueblo, NM) to our wedding “cake” (actually a pie, which we prefer) and of course the song playing while we walked down the aisle: “Never Saw Blue Like That” by Shawn Colvin.

Besides being a beautiful song musically, the lyrics fit perfectly: describing the feeling of falling in love and how it makes the whole world come alive and shine more brightly, and how it feels like coming home–exactly how I feel about Jodi!

While I love all of the song’s lyrics, I think my favorite lines are:

“And even now, I’m so amazed
It’s like a dream, it’s like a rainbow,
It’s like the rain.”

I especially love the words, “It’s like the rain.”

Pretty much everyone recognizes that dreams and rainbows are special–magical, fleeting, elusive flashes of beauty. But so often we take for granted the everyday miracles, such as rain.

But if you take even a moment to contemplate this amazing phenomenon, you’ll see that it’s nothing short of miraculous: Rain falls from the sky, nurturing plants and all living things, providing drinking water that we require (since most of our body is water)–and then it becomes invisible, gets cleansed, and floats back into the sky where it forms beautiful clouds. And then the cycle begins again.

Talk about a mind-boggling miracle!

Yet, perhaps because it’s an everyday “mundane” occurance, we often fail to see the magic in something as common as rain.

How often do you take time to appreciate everyday miracles in your life?

Aside from rain, what are other everyday miracles in your life?

• Other natural phenomena, such as the rising and setting of the sun.
• The miracle of your body–with all of its complex physical functions, intellectual capacity, and emotional sensitivity.
• Love and friendship.
• Life itself.

Just because these (and so many other everyday miracles) aren’t rare doesn’t make them any less valuable, precious, and worthy of appreciation.

Rainbows and Rain

Yes, it’s very nice to have “rainbows”–those special moments of rare, fleeting beauty: weddings, anniversaries, major life accomplishments, and other significant moments of celebration.

But what makes up most of life–and makes it so special–is the “rain,” the everyday miracles: a hug, a conversation that helps you feel understood and supported, a sunset, the very act of breathing in and out, giving love and feeling loved in return.

I know that, thanks to the wonderful woman who shares my life, I will never stop appreciating these everyday miracles…every day.

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What are some of your favorite everyday miracles? How do you appreciate them? Maybe your comment will help others to appreciate the everyday miracles in their lives as well!

P.S. Don’t we have a beautiful flower girl (our “dog-ter” Xena)?