Walking out the gym last night, the sky was basically a giant burst of a million different colors. Being the Super Athlete that I am, I easily hoisted my rambunctious 3-year old onto my shoulders and breathed in the fresh air and tilted my face towards the setting sun.

False.

Drenched in sweat from a treacherous 2.1 mile run slash jog slash walk on the treadmill, face beet red from my lungs nearly exploding out of my chest, and boasting some totally sexy sweaty pits, I feebly bent down to tell my sweet girl to look up at the sky.
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Me: "Faithy, look! The sky is beautiful."

F: "Ooooh it's orange! I love it!"

Me: "Jesus made that beautiful sky."

F: "Did He paint it??"

Me: "Yep. You should tell Him thank you."

[silence]

F: "I just told him in my heart. He did not say you're welcome."
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Well, that's pretty rude, Jesus. :)

The whole drive home, Faith was enamored by the orange sky that she has seen countless nights...every single night when we go to the gym...or....every other night when we go to the gym....or maybe just every Saturday morning before we hit up IHOP with Aunt Mandie, so I guess she never sees the sunset. Whatev.

"Look, Faithy! Just beyond the rolling green hills, (surely they are alive with the sound of music)...do you see the sun setting??"

False.

"Faithy, strain your neck at a 75 degree angle...do you see it? Look just to the left of the Huck's gas station sign (dangit, gas prices are killing me) and above the roof of the Dandy Inn (haven't had a good Irish beer in a while)...do you see the orange sunset??"

"I SEE IT, MOMMY!!! I SEE IT! GO FIND IT!!"

Sitting at the intersection of 159 (such an annoying road) and Rt. 50, staring at the red light, I had a decision to make. Go left, home to my glass of Pinot and 6 cookies to reward myself for an intense workout....or go straight and chase that sunset, which according to my pastor (well, and scientists I suppose), is like 93 million miles away or something.

You'z best believe we chased that damn sunset.

Granted, we drove like 2.3 minutes down the road until the buildings cleared and she could see the whole sky, which actually was pretty much the bomb dot com (yep, I said that. I'm a mom, I don't need to be cool.)

"Where does the sun go?"

"It goes to sleep at night. It goes down and then the moon comes up."

[silence]

"MOMMY!!! THE MOON!! I SEE IT RIGHT THERE!!"

Dammit. So much for that analogy. Thanks a lot, Earth. You couldn't have waited 10 more minutes until the sun was gone to let the freakin' moon show up?

Regardless...I went home that night and thought more about the unplanned life lesson I had taught my daughter (minus the Irish beer and cursing gas prices). The fingerprints of Jesus really are everywhere. The pure joy on her face of understanding that He created beautiful things for our pleasure is a pretty sweet concept.

This morning on the way to school, I glanced at her in the mirror.

"Hey, sweet girl."

"Hi, Mama."

"You know that feeling you get when you are really happy? And you just want to smile really big?"

"Hmmm. YES!"

"When you feel happy like that, that is when Jesus is hugging you."

"He is??"

"Yep!" (I'm feeling pretty good about Life Lesson #2 I just taught her. Pat on the back. Mom of the Year. You're welcome, Jesus.)

"Oh. Well I don't know what that means. My Pop-Tart broke."

Fine. Can't win 'em all.