how he loves...

How He Loves

David Crowder Band

He is jealous for me

Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree

Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy

When all of a sudden

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory

And I realize just how beautiful You are

And how great Your affections are for me

And O how He loves us

Oh, O how He loves us

How He loves us all

Yeah He loves us

O how He loves us

O how He loves us

O how He loves

We are His portion and He is our prize

Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes

If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking

So Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss

And my heart turns violently inside of my chest

I don't have time to maintain these regrets

When I think about the way

That He loves us,

Oh how He loves us,

Oh how He loves us,

Oh how He loves.

Yeah, He loves us,

Oh how He loves us,

Oh how He loves us,

Oh how He loves.

We sang this song tonight at Breakaway, the youth worship service.  I've liked this song for a long time, but in light of some stuff that has happened over the last couple of days, it really hit home with me tonight...

oh how He loves me...

...to provide peace in the midst of the storm

...to provide good, solid relationships in the rocky times in life

...to provide reassurance that things will be okay when I'm not sure how things are going to turn out

...to provide a way for my sins to be forgiven so that I can spend eternity with Him

sweet sweet moments with Jesus tonight as these words and thoughts ran through my head and heart...while I may never be able to grasp the entirety of His great love for us, I am so thankful for the glimpses He shows me each day.

Building Houses...Building Relationships...

While it may seem that the purpose of our trip to Guatemala was to build 2 houses for families with inadequate, unsafe housing, the true purpose of our trip was to build relationships with the people we worked with, the families we served alongside of, and the people we encountered during our time in San Lucas Toliman.  When we first arrived in San Lucas Toliman, I wasn't really sure how any building was going to take happen-relationship or house---my Spanish skills are very lacking and I certainly didn't know how to build a house out of concrete blocks!  On Monday, I learned how to lay block (it took Avery and I several tries to get it right, but we eventually became a great team!).  On Tuesday, I learned that it doesn't how many Spanish words you know (or don't know in my case!), laughter, smiles, and playing with toys in the dirt are the same in every language!  I had just taken a break on Tuesday morning and was about to get back to work when I saw 2 of the little girls that would be living in the house I was working on come out of their current temporary shelter with a few toys.  They peeked at me and I waved back at them.  On Monday they had peeked out at us several times, but never made it more than a few feet from their front door to see what was going on next door.  As I waved, I thought to myself "maybe this is my chance to play with them, to love on them for a little while!"  So, I walked over with a big smile on my face and sat down and begin to ask them questions about themselves in my very pathetic Spanish.  Jackie and Jessica, the two little girls, are 4 and 6 and talk a million miles a minute.  They reminded us of American kids their age---sometimes what they say is intelligible, sometimes it's not.  So, in my bad Spanish and their lightening fast talking, we began to form a friendship.  They brought all of their toys out to play with me (and Kendall and Avery---they came over to play with us too!) and we sat and played in the dirt for 20 or 30 minutes.  Those 20 or 30 minutes were probably some of the most special of the entire trip.  Throughout the week, we continued to play with Jackie and Jessica every chance we got and eventually Josue and Emerson came out to play too (Josue is Jackie and Jessica's brother, Emerson is their cousin).  I loved every exhausting moment of chasing those kids, kicking the soccer ball in the middle of the "street", and swinging them around.  Their smiles, their giggles, their joy was contagious.  While we did finish the houses on time and now these two families have a safe place to lay their heads at night, the most important thing that happened that week was the lasting friendships that were built and will be shared for all of eternity because a few "gringos" decided to spend Spring Break in Guatemala building houses and some sweet, beautiful Guatemalan kids came out to play with them one morning.