The midst of a beautiful storm.

It's the rainy days. As I sit in my bedroom watching the rain hit the puddles and burst into a million water particles, I feel my heart burst into a million different pieces. And it's the rainy days that take me back to BOTH countries I visited this year.

While in Uganda, we had a field day with the rays of hope children. The day was absolutely beautiful. The sun was shining brightly with a slight breeze in the 80 degree weather. When the kids got there we started playing games with them in the perfect weather, and we had an amazing time running around the field made of complete dirt. This is what I wrote in my journal that day:

"Our plans were good, but God's plans were better. We had amazing plans of awesome games for the kids and were ready when they arrived in SHEETS. It looked like it was getting a little cloudy, but I didn't think twice about it. We split them up and started playing games-which was complete chaos! In the middle of the 2nd rotation of my soccer group, it started sprinkling, and then we experienced torrential downpour in the red mud fields of Uganda. It was absolutely incredible! The way those kids lit up when the rain POURED down, made my heart leap. I held giggling girls' hands, entered into a mud fight, ran around, and screamed for joy in the midst of a beautiful storm. One of my absolute favorite experiences so far. It was amazing. The rain somewhat stopped and the next 15 minutes were spent warming kids up from the biting cold rain and jumping around to somewhat warm up. God is so good."
It was like God was pouring out His very love onto all of us, and all we could do was giggle and run around and scream because God is so good. In thinking about this cherished memory, I can't help but think about how much God loves us. In the song "He loves us," it says that God is jealous for you and me. Think about something/someone you are jealous of. Maybe its where they live, or their social status, or their job, or car, or how much money they have, but to think that the God who created rain, and flowers, and molecules, and galaxies, and dogs, and cows, and calcium, and salt, and trees, and sunsets, and light, and darkness, and every random thing you can look at, is jealous for you? How in the world could that be?

How could a perfect, holy, sinless God love us enough to be jealous for us with a righteous jealousy beyond our imagination?

It's because He is God. Sometimes it gets hard to believe that He CAN love us that much, to be jealous for this dirty rotten sinner that He created for some very odd reason. But it's true, and I believe it with all of my heart as long as live, because if I didn't believe it, why would there even be a reason to live? Take a minute to just drink in how much He loves you. He wants to continually pour out His love on you. He wants you to completely drink in how much He loves you. Even in your dirty, nasty state as filthy as rags. But you have to accept that beautiful reality and believe it. You can't just say "God loves me." You have to completely and utterly live it out.

Let His Love pour down on you and drench your soul. Live out His Love, not your own.

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