the colors of the morning

By the time I get on the 242 from Seattle to Redmond in the mornings, the bus is usually pretty full. Often, the only open seats are in the accordion part of the bus where no one likes to sit (I am pretty sure it would have most people puking within minutes because of the way it moves). Thankfully, I’m not prone to motion sickness, so I usually have two seats to myself, which I really like, because then I am not trying to not slide into someone else when the bus is turning. I hate that. The bad part about sitting in the accordion, though, is that there aren’t windows in that part of the bus, and it’s difficult to see out of the other ones. 

This morning as we were driving across Lake Washington and I was reading my book, I happened to glance up and saw a reflection of orange out of the corner of my eye. I began craning my neck and was finally able to get a pretty decent view of one of the most beautiful sunrises that I have ever seen. It was a fairly cloudy morning, but the clouds were thick and low and as the sun came through them, it created a beautiful orange and hot pink pattern in the sky. That combined with the reflection on the water was absolutely breathtaking. I spent the next five minutes staring out that window. I know it was making the man who I was looking past to see through the window behind him feel uncomfortable as I noticed him awkwardly trying to avoid eye contact, but I really didn’t care. I couldn’t take my eyes away from it. In those moments, I was struck by the phrase from a Phil Wickham’s song, “The colors of the morning are inside your eyes.” That sunset was beautiful and realizing that I worship the God who created it (and is even more beautiful) was a moment of worship in and of itself. 

Whenever I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning, it helps to remember that I might see a sunrise. Sunrises are always worth it.