As I settle in, adjusting more and more to life on the west coast God continues to open my eyes to things, food, and experiences that growing up in a suburban neighborhood in Alabama I have never gotten to view. In Los Angeles culture is everywhere. There is so many different countries in the world being represented and for most of them LA is home to the largest amount of those people with the exception of their home countries. Meaning that LA has more Koreans then any where else in the world besides Korea. Needless to say being a white southern girl I stick out.
Although traveling around all the different parts of Los Angeles gives me new perspective on the world, and not just the world but our nation I find my thoughts continuing to go back to one place...Skid Row.
Skid Row, which is more like Skid Blocks, is a place in downtown LA where nearly 8,000 homeless people live. It has the highest concentrated amount of homeless people in our Nation. While working on Skid Row over the past week my heart was sadden to learn that the average age of a homeless person in the United States is age nine, and on Skid Row only one shelter accepts families.
I have been able to have many opportunities in my life to go to different parts of our country as well as different parts of the world. In most of the opportunities I have seen a lot of "poverty", a lot of physical lack of material things. I have seen hurting families in Africa, poor schooling in Jamaica, a tent city in Mexico, but never in my life have I seen people pushing shopping carts with their entire life packed tightly inside, while literally directly above them the rich sleep in lofts costing 2,000$ a month. Never in my life have I seen tents, umbrellas, tarps, all set up as make shift houses, everyones whole life all in one bin or box. People of all kinds doing life in a way most of America would consider painful, and maybe these people would agree. The image of these people pained my heart, and unlike traveling through the rest of LA where Gods glory was found even in the poverty, here it seemed to be almost no where to be found. As we drove out of Skid Row, literally one block over we entered into the flower district where millions of flowers are sold every day. At first I found this very ironic, almost painfully ironic, how could such beauty be found so close to hurt, pain, broken dirt. God then opened my eyes to the thought of "how could it not be so close together?" What a perfect example of God in us! Dirt is found in all of our lives not just in homelesness.That even through the worst, the ugliest, most dirt filled versions of us, there he is pushing through the dirt... a flower pushing through the dirt.
After all, every flower, even the most beautiful need dirt to push through, to grow out of, to be displayed on.
"Heaven and Earth are full, full of your glory, my soul it over flows full of your glory, your glory, blessed is he who reigns, your glory, your glory my cup it cant contain all of your glory, your glory."
-David Crowder Band
