From ashes. To beauty.

I've spent the last couple of days alternating from near tears, to deep, righteous indignation.

Studying, preparing, for a very difficult film trip. This one's not going to be easy.

How would you like to point a camera at someone who lives on top of the city dump? Or a child whose parents sold them into a life of slave labor, or worse?

I've been watching videos that tell their stories. People who had their homes (shacks) bulldozed to make room for those with more money. Children who never had a chance to live an innocent childhood.

And yes, it makes me both very sad, and wildly indignant.

But there's one thought that remains present, no matter what I come across.

Jesus Loves to take the ones who have been trodden under foot. The very ones we'd be inclined to believe could never rise above their circumstances to become transformed into the image of the Creator.

He loves to take them. Yes, those ones. And make them something good. Something very good.

After all, if He can make a perfect couple out of dirt, can't He do it with living, breathing people?

But I think the greatest miracle, is the one He can do in my heart, to make me worthy to impart this new life.

This is what I live for.

(please pray for us as we prepare for a very difficult work...)

**Photo credit from Wikimedia commons public domain