I’ve been descirbed as quiet, shy, and reserved. And those are all acurate descriptions. But I’m also a full fledged extrovert (people person). I don’t quite understand how someone so afraid of people can so desperately need them, but I do.
And as I looked back over my most peaceful, most precious moments in Mexico last week, my extroverted nature was clearly seen. Because my moments of stillness were always full of people and life. I wish I had a picture for every one of these moments. Although pictures are worth a thousand words, but without the words you’d never know the joy and peace surging through my heart in these moments.
Watching ‘Cars’ with Louis. His eys glued to the tv, his head on my shoulder, his hand reaching up to pull my head down to rest on his.
Watching a group of ladies chatting and cooking in Spanish. And in the middle of the bunch the ever smiling Pastor Louis, hands dirty, chatting and laughing and shedding joy into everything around him.
Climbing dusty rocks to the top of thier own little mountain. Looking down at the patchwork of feilds and roads and house dotted here and there and then the town with the houses coming thick and close together. And around it all the hills. Craggy, bush and rock covered little mountains, purple and blue against the early morning light.
Painting the tan pants onto the mural of the little boy. Concentrating on every brush stroke so completely that everything else, the kids running in and out, the adults talking, the sounds of tiles being laid a few feet away, faded away. Worship music playing gently in the background and every ounce of stress pouring out of my body during those long, concentrated moments.
Sitting in the little office in the back with far too many people for the number of chairs, every person singing. And the voices and instruments kept lifting and swelling until I thought the room would burst, not from the noise, but from the fullness of praise and joy and glory and beauty of it all.
Little Antu falling asleep on my lap, her little black, Ethopian afro bobbed with each bump in the road, and my hand cradling her, trying to ease the jolts. And I meditated on the wonder of God’s grace, that an abandoned baby in Ethopia would be adopted by an American youth pastor and his wife, just to move to Mexico before her third birthday to start an orphanage for abandoned, orphaned children in Mexico.
Once again with far too many people for the space, we had cramed into a little roadside torta stand, eating, laughing, talking, and drinking tall glass bottles of coke.
There is indescribable peace for me in the moments of noise and chaos and joy. Somewhere, in the middle of all the noise and hustle around me, my heart slows down till it almost stops, trying to soak in the joy and the beauty of it all. And every care in the world washes out of my heart and mind in that moment of people and noise and joy and beauty.
And I have nothing profound to say except that I don’t quite understand how my mind works, but I’m thankful for the places that God allows me to see Him and feel His peace so clearly.
I want to keep seeing peace in the chaos.
I want to keep finding beauty in the crazy.
I want to keep soaking in His presence with people and life and hustle and bustle all around.
Be blessed
<3
