Sometimes, I find beauty in unexpected places. I discover sunlight on the other side of the clouds, a panorama after the climb, colors dancing through the gray, hope after months of despair.

This spring, I needed a reminder of that beauty. As I walked through personal struggles, I wondered if I would find any beauty or meaning along the way.

One afternoon, as we drove home on the interstate, I was pleasantly surprised. I noticed a magnificent spread of colorful wildflowers, planted along the side of the road. The vibrant yellow and purple blooms stretched for miles, continuously filling my outlook with color. They assured me that spring had come and that the winter in my life was about to disappear.
 

 
I enjoyed this quote about flowers, which came from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Naval Treaty:

“Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”

I rarely expect complex answers to be found in simple things. Yet, over and over again, it’s these brief encounters with beauty, these unplanned moments with my Creator, that bring peace to my soul. I hear an answer through the stillness. I see a pattern in the wildflowers. I have faith that beauty will overtake the pain.