Beauty

                                           Beauty

                                      Molly Nichols 

    I wanted to write today, I really wanted to sit down and write today, and so now I’m deciding to. I hope that someone will read this and maybe relate to wherever this blog post is headed, but if not that’s okay too. I wanted to write today because nothing else seemed to calm me down. I have been feeling down these past couple days, but today the sun finally hit me in the most unexpected way. 

    I’ve never been into dreams, and the idea that they can be interpreted into having meaning in your actual life, but today they kinda seemed to. For some people they know that I lost my brother at a very young age and it’s always been sort of a permanent imprint on my soul. If you didn’t know that already...well now you do. Anyways, he joined me in a dream last night, I can’t remember anything other than him hugging me. I remember this hug and how it felt very vividly, so vividly that I can remember how it felt to wrap my arms around his ribs, and have his chin rest upon my head. It was so strange because it felt exactly how it felt eight years ago when I hugged him for the very last time. 

    I’m not positive what it meant, but I am positive what it made me realize. 

    It made me realize just how beautiful it is to dream. 

    And when I woke up this morning, I decided to write. Writing is the gift that I give out to the people around me. Writing is my God given gift and I intended to keep improving it and spreading it for the rest of my life. It is my gift as so many other people have their own gifts. 

    I was thinking about this and scrolling through Instagram today when an idea began to hit me in so many different ways. People that I was friends with expressing and sharing their gifts through the beauty of the internet. And i’m not talking about some girls and their ability to only show the bullshit highlight reels intended to make the rest of us feel insecure. That’s not a talent. And that doesn’t reflect God. 

    I saw a guy I used to go to school with post photos on his photography account today and it was so beautiful. They were pictures he had taken of a couple during a couples photo shoot somewhere in nature. I saw a girl I also used to attend school with, and she has an Instagram account for creating pictures of beautiful quotes in gorgeous coloring and lettering. And every new bible verse/quote was so unbelievably beautiful, because she made it beautiful. It was so crazy to me that it has taken me this long in my life to recognize these forms of beauty on a platform that is known for being so incredibly ugly. 

    These two people created beauty. 

    And it wasn’t the type of “beauty” found in the superficial highlight reels that everyone is used to indulging in. The type of posts that I, myself, am used to indulging in. It was really, truly, exactly what I needed to see in that moment. Just like how I really, truly hope this is what you need to be reading in this moment. 

    Hundreds of thousands of people create beauty everyday. To all of you reading this post, I’m creating and spreading my beauty and my gift. 

    I hope after reading this, you’ll choose to spread your own. 

    Sending you all the love in the world.

    XOXO

    - Molly