Bendito Sea El Señor En La Creación

I'm not sure why, but I was recently thinking about the Mid-West U.S. I spent some time there (in the Chicago suburbs) last fall for my misison training. That was the 2nd time I'd been to the MidWest. Honestly, the first thing I remember thinking upon my first time in Illinois was that the land is flatter than anything I'd ever seen, and there were no pine trees, too many buildings, and basically that it's a not-so-pretty over-built grassland. Yes, I am very spoiled living in the Northwest! I remember at I.T. we had daily time built into our schedule the busy first week of classes to have personal devotion time. I went outside pretty much every day. And one of those days I remember thinking, "you know, it is kind of pretty here, just in a different way than the West Coast." Looking around me I could see lots of green grass, a small hill that led up to a water treatment plant, some deciduous trees, and I knew that there was a river about 1/2 a mile away. Somehow, God made that all seem beautiful to me. I also thought about Northern California, and how just north of Redding, it's about the most beautiful place ever, but once you go south of there (on the I-5 corridor anyway) it's grassland, but brown grass. Blah. But I think that could be pretty too.

It's a good thing that God is giving me a different view of beautiful scenery, and taking joy in His creation. That day in Illinois, I thought, "Hmm, I'm moving from the most beautiful place on earth (sorry, I'm biased) to the middle of the desert." Maybe Queretaro wouldn't seem like the middle of the desert to everyone, but it did to me. But it's still pretty in it's own way. Especially the centro of Queretaro, there are nice old buildings and sculped trees. I think they are green all year even though they are deciduous. But I am glad to have a bit of a change of attitude about the whole "scenery" thing. My college friends, especially those of you from the Brasil trip, know that that was a much needed change for me! ha! So I am thankful for a change of heart. We all need those once in a while.