Cloudy Day of Grace

There was no beautiful sunrise on this gray and cloudy December morning; nothing to dazzle you with its indescribable brilliance.  No, the beauty of this day is in its softness.  The very air itself envelopes me like my grandmother’s pillowy embrace.  Without the brilliant colors of the sunrise, I am drawn to the ever changing patterns of foam in the surf as the waves roll forward and pull back.  What lessons there are to see in the ocean?  Some days of my life are overcome by brilliant sunrises, new beginnings, color filled possibilities.  I seem to tend toward wanting my life to be full of sunshine days.  But today witnesses the small beauties of the cloudy day, morsels of grace that would go unnoticed in the brilliant light.  The small still voice speaks and says look at the glorious ever changing waves.  Even in the turbulent gray ocean is the possibility of beautiful patterns of foam.  What patterns of grace have I missed in my life when on gray days I wish for sunshine rather than living with the moments that are here and now in these quiet cloudy days of grace?