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Though in the Fall of 2000, I felt I was beginning to make a little headway with the Romanian language, the country’s poverty was still very hard to get past.

One day, I was with a family from the village church that I worked in. We were driving through Oradea and I couldn’t help but notice how ugly everything seemed to be.

The sidewalks were cracked and muddy.

The streets were filled with potholes, many filled with brown water.

Paint was peeling off the gray buildings, and many of the houses had roofs and walls that looked as they could cave in at any moment.

The cars whizzing past us featured a rainbow of colors, yet due to the grime on their exteriors, the colorful variety remained hidden behind a dull gray coating.

The unkempt city could be described with many adjectives. “Beautiful” was not one of them.

As I beheld the blandness of the city sights, I heard the soft sounds of singing float past my ears. Sister Lidia was singing “How Great Thou Art.” O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the works Thy hands have made… the verse began, before going on to praise God for the beauty of His creation. Finally, the song climaxed with the strong exclamation of the chorus: “How great Thou art!” I was looking at Oradea, impressed by its ugly exterior, while the Romanian woman in the back seat was praising God for His beautiful creation.

It all comes down to perspective. Often we are hindered by a false perspective, and we unwittingly choose to observe the negative aspects of life, while God is waiting to open our eyes to see His beauty.

As the woman continued to sing her song of praise, I found myself looking through the window of the car and becoming aware of the trees with their leaves changing colors. I noticed bright colored leaves lying on the ground, creating a quilt of color that padded the cracked streets. My eyes caught a glimpse of a little dog chasing a squirrel down one side of the street, before stopping to bark at the foot of a tree as the squirrel scampered up the side to his stash of acorns.

Suddenly, I realized that even in the ugly conditions brought about by human activity, God rains down His beautiful colored leaves in the fall, blankets the dirty city with snow in the winter, and splashes a myriad of colors on His world through the blooming flowers of Spring. God keeps His creation intact.

I had been observing the ugly remains of a once-beautiful city. The Romanians were looking at the beautiful patches of God’s handiwork springing up among those remains.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2007 Kingdom People blog

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