from glory to glory

Sometimes I am so incredibly sad and I don't know why, kind of like I have lived so much of my life in this state that it has become normal. So much so that sometimes it feels weird to smile. I've been noticing a lot though that when I see the kids I can't help but smile. They bring me such complete joy and happiness. All they have to do is walk out of a building and converse with their friends, just the sound of their voice, their laughter...I love them. I love them when they play video games. I love them when they are late for work in the PX and make up excuses like "I was helping my grandmother cross the street" I love them when they mess up. I love them when they're difficult, when they make the same mistakes over and over again. I love them when they ask for me to pray for them. All of them have a different walk, a different manner of holding themselves. Sometimes I feel like a creeper because all I want to do is be around them, to talk to them, to know their hearts. Most of them don't even know Jesus but its amazing to me how is fingerprints are all over them and they don't even know it. They are beautiful. They are perfect. They are so gifted and have so much potential. And when I look at them I just smile and take in God's glory because they were created in his image. How amazing is that? That we, men, nothing but dust from the ground, so fragile, so imperfect, so utterly messed up and incompetent, we carry the image of the living God -the one who created us? And we don't even know it. We curse our bodies. We curse our brothers. How sad it all is, that we don't get who we are. Hah, I don't get who I am. It's so much easier to love someone else.