Beautiful.

Yesterday, on my two hour trek through my parents' town, I couldn't help but be dazzled by the sheer beauty of the landscape around me. I grew up here, yes, but suppose I never have really noticed it before. I certainly have never paused long enough to drink it all in...just to marvel. How green the grass...how grand the pines...how lush the shrubs. Ahhhhhhh. And the cicadas-- singing to their Creator, just as all creation bursts forth with praise to the One who hung the moon and the stars and stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. All around us, there is beauty to savor for He has poured out His beauty upon every corner of the earth. And though I may long to be back in Morocco or be - somewhere, anywhere else- how dare I miss the magnificence of what is around me, at this time and in this place. Indeed, "He has made everything beautiful in its' time."

Let everything that has breath
praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!
...For His name alone is exalted;
His splendor is above
the earth and the heavens.

Ps. 8:3, Ecc. 3:11, Ps. 150:6, Ps. 148:13