Purple

This past weekend my best friend bought me tickets to go with her and see The Color Purple Broadway musical in Atlanta. It was a fantastic production, and I am so glad I went. Going really meant a lot to her, as she is in love with Broadway, and it made me very happy to join in with something so important to her.

The Color Purple...What an intense but awesome story. I had never watched the full movie because it is hard for me to see that type of intensity on film.---Pain and hardship. Hatred. Cruelty. ...But then ...love...and eventual redemption.

The musical hit me in a lot of ways, but one of the ideas was about the color - purple - hence the name. At one point in the drama the main character says something to the effect of, "I think God gets upset when we walk by the color purple in a field, as in a purple flower, and don't recognize how beautiful it is. With purple, God says to us, "I made that color just for you."

Well, I went walking while in Atlanta on Sunday morning after the show and I noticed all of the 'purple' along the way...lots of various purple flowers here and there in people's yards, along the roadside, etc. So bright and vibrant. A truly poignant color.

And then this morning while running, home on Hilton Head, I took extra notice of the little purple wild flowers (I think they are passion flowers) along the bike path and of the purple crepe myrtle at the entrance to my condo.

When I used to live in Colorado, the purple Columbine, Lupine and Paintbrush that would bloom in Crested Butte every summer were absolutely spectacular, and looking at a field of them would take my breath away.

I believe that God really did make the color purple - just for us. Why else would He make it? And, it graces us in the sky, too. But I also know this...and my devotional talked about this today ...that flowers wouldn't exist without the rain. That purple skies are often the remainder of a cloudy day.

Rain brings eventual joy... So be it in life. Good times are often measured as 'so good' ...only when compared to the bad.

God brings beauty out of pain.

Hilton Head Island boasts lots of gorgeous 'purple' right now during the summer. Go find it.