Open your eyes

Blogging is a great thing. And the only thing better than blogging for me is finding someone else's blog that really inspires me and makes me appreciate life.
I was just browsing and came across a blog called 'three beautiful things.' Every entry is just a list of three beautiful things that the person encountered that day.
There is so much beauty in everything. You have to be prepared to encounter it everyday and you will.
The past few days I've been reading a book called "born confused." I have to admit, this is probably the fifth time that I've read it, but i am affected by it every time. Every single time it has made me view life and who i am in a different light. It's about an girl from India, who grew up in the states and wants to be a photographer. And she's confused about who she is. But through her camera, and through learning more about where she came from, her whole world comes alive, like a movie moving from black and white to Technicolor. What i love so much about the main character is that she learns to take control of her life, to not be ashamed of the way she feels and who she is, and she does what she loves.
She is able to find the beauty in the mundane, and to eventually look at the positive side of things instead of the negative. Everything is able to come together and make sense, even in the midst of being completely confusing and crazy.
Because the reality of it all is... life is full of complications and and paradoxes, and clouds with really hard-to-make-out silver linings. It's not black and white. Situations and occurrences dont simply add or subtract to our lives. There is a whole middle level of life that has an intense beauty that isn't always recognized. Even silence has a sound.
I guess what I'm trying to say is...i want to quit living my life like every question has an answer. I want to quit living my life like every little thing that doesn't go according to plan is some kind of death, or some kind of ending.
Truth: beauty is birthed in every moment that i open my eyes to witness it. I want my eyes and my heart to be open to wonderful things, things that may seem mundane or unimportant, but aren't. Things like sleeping on the top bunk of a ridiculous triple loft last night in a bed so full of books and lamps and alarm clocks and fans that i didn't know what to do with myself. My cup of coffee this morning, that i bought looking like a zombie i was so tired. All of the information that all of the books in the library hold, just waiting on the shelves for people to come and learn. Homemade scones. An awkward conversation. A beautiful dress. A sign from God appearing after you've been praying for one. Falling asleep on my roof with laura. Hearing my favorite song on the radio. The way a new born baby smells. The fact that no matter how cheesy these things may sound, they aren't in the least bit, because they are true.
In retrospect, my life has been full of these simple amazing moments, whose purpose, I can see now was to help me to believe in beauty.
So my mission is to look for it, to keep my eyes open, to stay alert and to praise God when even simple things have the power to knock me off my feet (which i believe they can).