I want the beautiful without the messy.
Like this picture. Poofy, white clouds were building up over the palm trees and we were getting ready for a non-rainy season rain. Humidity was thick and the air desperate for just a little relief. I love this view, and I stood at our front door trying to imprint it all on to my memory.
I tried to capture this scene, but all I could see was the messy tangle of electrical wires and the sharp barbed wire and glass on top of our fence. They are reminders of some of the things that frustrate me the most and steal the beauty of the creation around me.
I’m getting ready to say goodbye for awhile to the place that has been my home for the last five years. Part of me wants to say, “So long and good riddance.” The last few months have been hard and it is easy to zoom in on the messy. Hot season has been in fully swing, dehydrating both my body and my soul. We’ve had some crazy electricity issues (remember all those clumps of wires?), and through different situations I have been reminded that human beings are far from perfect, myself unfortunately included.
Yet, just like our life, the messy and the beautiful come all together in one package. When I take a moment to look up, the tangled wires are still there, sure, but I don’t want to miss the brilliant colors of bright green against pure blue sky. I don’t want to miss the fact that even when we were trying to navigate how to fix our electricity at 7:00 pm, God sent a man we hadn’t met to be waiting outside our gate so he could make calls and explain complicated concepts outside our vocabulary bubble- and who knew those words in English too so he could help us feel more at ease. When my heart felt desperate and dejected this week, God breathed life again with a story of hope, a story of a part of our labor bearing fruit in souls transformed by our Father.
So I can’t separate these two, and together, they are a sweet gift, one that I will carry with me as I say goodbye, for now.
A Heart Like His 