beauty.

“…a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair…instead of shame my people will receive a double portion, instead of disgrace they will rejoice in their inheritance, their joy will be everlasting.”    Isaiah 61:3

A child’s laugh, a child’s innocence, is the same in every language, in every country, in every culture.

I visited the WHI Assessment Center today.  An “emergency room” of sorts for girls who have been brutally used and abused, now given the chance for healing and redemption.  The AC provides physical and emotional care for girls rescued from commercial sexual exploitation or severe rape.  It is a place where they are given love and attention and the chance to be a child again. 

Every time I step through the gateway, I step into a child’s dream world.  Girls running and jumping, swinging and sliding.  Painted murals of children playing cover the security walls and brightly colored paper lanterns, made by the girls, hang from the rafters.  There is so much joy, so much laughter; it is so hard to imagine what these precious little girls have been through. 

The beauty of resilience.  The beauty of God’s love.  I see it and feel it in every part of me.  Beauty springing up everywhere out of ashes, the oil of gladness running like a flowing river of laughter and tears, the garment of praise wrapped tightly around each housemother who opens her arms and welcomes these precious little ones as her own.

I am disgusted, angered, defeated as I write stories I wish didn’t match with the little faces I see outside. I am delighted, inspired, humbled to see the love and compassion and hope that flows through each of the housemothers, counselors and social workers who give themselves completely to be used by God in the lives of these girls. 

It would be much easier for each of them to just give up, find other work.  To not have to face the daily struggle to keep loving the broken and weary and not become broken and weary themselves.  This work can leave you broken hearted, one of the staff said to me.  And yet, she continued, I know God has plans for each one of them.  God changes the bad to the good.  It is the hope we have to hold on to.  The hope and promise for all of us…

We will be His people, and He will be our God.  He will wipe every tear from our eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order will pass away…He makes all things new!  To him who is thirsty, He will give drink without cost from the spring of the water of life…and we will shine with the glory of God and with brilliance like that of a very precious jewel, clear and pure as crystal.     Rev. 21

He has bestowed a crown of beauty on each of us with the promise to make all things new!

the view

 
what is that?!? robin came to visit from Vietnam to help me explore the unidentifiables of Cambodia! (look closely...you won't be able to tell what it is either)

  hmmmm...he fits right in

05.04.2010

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:  for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;  and for everything
which is natural  which is infinite  which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
ee cummings

***

I close my eyes, I take a deep breath and hold the life-giving air in my lungs.  The sweet air, fragrant with the scent of plumeria and mango.  Breath.  Life.  Beauty.  This most amazing day. 

I am in awe of what I am celebrating.  24 years?  How can I be this old, yet how can I not?  When I allow my mind to wander over and through the adventures and experiences I have tasted, touched, felt, heard, stumbled upon, climbed up, fallen down, drank in, photographed, painted…breathed…I am in awe and in love with every moment.  Every ‘no words can describe’ moment.  Every ‘how did I even get here?’ moment. Every ‘oh Lord when will this end?’ moment.  Every, ‘praise God for grace’ moment.  Every ‘close my eyes, trust, and jump’ moment. (those are my favorites)

I am in awe of and in love with this journey.  With every twist and every turn that has left me feeling dizzy and lost.  With every face and every name that has written on my heart, held my hand, pushed me along.  With every sweet miracle and every trying pause. 

I have no idea what lies ahead.  One month from today I will land on American soil.  The land of the free.  Home of the brave. One month from today I will be 24, broke and jobless on American soil with no future plans in sight. 

But is the soil I will return to ground my feet will run and leap and dance freely on?  Is the soil I will return to ground I will bravely and confidently walk toward my future on? 

As much as I yearn for the sweet fellowship with my family and friends (and I do, I really do), I truly wonder if America can hold my future in her hands?  Wonder if I can walk confidently and boldly in the freedom I have found from the binding, suffocating distractions of our culture.  Wonder if I can love each person who walks into my life and love myself as I have learned to love outside her borders.

Yet all I have to do is look back through the pages and pages I fill with words that could never do justice to the experiences they describe and know, with everything within me, that just as He has provided and protected and led me these last 24 years – the next 24 will be no different. 

I do thank God for most this amazing day. 
For every imaginable, tangible, memorable, infinite gift – and every unimaginable, intangible, unforgettable, illimitably wonderful life and love and wings. 

How can I even begin to imagine what comes next in this journey?  The empty pages in this journal are just an invitation for God to keep writing.