Emerald City

Today for the first time in ages...I played church hookey. No, I did not cease to worship nor praise God...I just didn't happen to do it in a building. Have you ever awakened and realized...you just need to get out of town? That was me this morning. We have all been sick in our household, so we weren't exactly planning on going to church anyway. We were sitting on the sofa with our sniffles and our coughs and our scratchy throats and I looked at my husband and said, "I need to get out of El Paso." He sort of laughed and was like....uh....where are you going to go? I said, "No. Seriously. I need to get out of El Paso. Now!" I said, "Let's go on an adventure!"

So we packed up our four kids and headed off. We weren't exactly sure where we were going or what we were going to do when we got there. We had in our minds the idea of going to this space museum about an hour away, but we were not exactly sure if it was what the doctor ordered.

I LOVE adventures. I love the idea of getting in your car and just going. The trouble with where I live, though, is that it is surrounded by nothingness and ugliness. It is the truest sense of the word ugly that ever existed. Buildings stretch as far as the eye can see. It is a sea of concrete and man-forced "trees" amongst rocks and sand and dirt. Ugly. I explain this to you so that you can sort of grasp the notion of going on an adventure here. We did NOT expect to discover anything beautiful.

We drove for a couple of hours. We did in fact find that space museum and we thoroughly enjoyed touring it. It was fabulous and quite educational. But something prevented us from heading back towards home when we left there. We got back in the car and kept on. We saw a sign for some apple orchard and thought that we should head that way. So we did. We drove further and further from home, when I kid you not...we discovered the emerald city. Okay...so maybe not literally the Emerald City, but a green like my eyes had never before seen. I had forgotten what it meant to me to see beauty. We drove in this beautiful scenery (green grass fields, huge pine trees, birch trees, birds singing, brooks babbling, etc etc) for hours. The whole time my heart was bawling its eyes out. I literally had no words. I was so in awe of God's creation. The sky was this vivid magical blue, with huge fluffy white clouds. I am convinced this was all created so that I could discover it on this much needed day.

I have seen so much ugliness here lately. My eyes feel weary of seeing and my ears grow drained from hearing. It seems that everyone has a complaint or a drama issue and it is so discouraging. Even those who are trying to obey and honor God are bogged down from the drama that other people are constantly pouring onto them. The world, as a whole...just sucks. But to go to this place, where all of the dirt and muck and ugliness just faded away...I felt for the hours that we were there, as if all was right with the world. My soul felt at ease. That feeling came from the scenery. I believe that I am a person who is affected by physical beauty. I mean, scenic beauty. I still hold in my mind the visions of a Kansas sunset....where the beautiful trees are black against the darkening blue sky and the dark green fields. I wish that I was a painter so that I could paint you the beauty that I was fortunate enough to experience in Kansas. This place reminded me of that. I could get lost there and never come back. My husband kept telling me, "Maybe we will retire here." I just smiled and told him not to joke about such things. But it truly was beautiful. I wonder if the people who live there acknowledge it for what it is. I wonder if they appreciate what they live in. I wonder if they wake up every morning in awe of what their eyes are so lucky as to behold...

I feel alive again. I didn't even realize how close to dead I had been feeling. It's strange because I know I am alive in Christ and I know my strength and encouragement and ability to do ANYTHING comes completely from Him. I also believe, though, that He knows me so intimately, so passionately, so romantically, that He is aware of the desires of my heart. He knows how deeply I long for green. So in this place, where it feels like the brown, dark, death is always looming. Where the cockroaches have their day and the spiders rule the town...a victory has been made. I KNOW there is LIFE not too far away. And you can't beat me down with your dirt anymore! :D

PS. My husband, after having me read this post to him, felt it necessary for me to mention that our daughter threw up (projectile vomited) all over our car while we were in emerald city. Yup...even THAT didn't ruin it for me! :)