I Wonder...


On a recent hike, my 8 year-old son spotted this butterfly and called me over to look at it.  The coloring of the pattern of its wings was beautiful and the blue shimmered in the sunlight.  We looked at it for several minutes and my son asked for my phone to take this picture.  While looking at it, he said, “I wonder if it knows how beautiful it is?”.  That struck me as a profound question.  I wonder too.

From a biology perspective there may be a reason or purpose to the pattern and colors in its wings.  Someone knows, just not me!

I asked my son if he knows just how amazing he is.  He smiled in reply.  I think he knows that I think he is amazing.  And he is still innocent in the way children are that they think highly of themselves and their abilities.

Most of the time we grow out of that innocence, or it is robbed from us by trauma.  But by adulthood, the majority of us now think it to be arrogant or conceited to see ourselves as beautiful, amazing, talented or powerful.

But we are!

Looking at this butterfly with my son and having this dear little conversation with him, before we started walking again, made me think about the beauty of people, and of myself even.

I think some of our own beauty we cannot see.  It takes someone else seeing us, taking the time to truly look, to wonder and care.  I realized how important it is to reflect back to those I love how I see them.  Maybe my friends don’t see the beauty in themselves that I see.  I can point it out. 

I wonder… do you know how beautiful you are?

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