It Speaks VoLUmES...

We saw his lips moving, but we couldn't hear a thing he was saying. His words were being swallowed by the continuous noise of the outdoors. As we walked towards the fence separating our lots, he jokingly said, "Just a minute, let me turn that down" as he pointed towards the waves plowing into the shore as the tide came in for the evening. We laughed as our neighbor was attempting to invite us over that evening for a little guitar concert on their porch. Little did we know all that was to be experienced on our second camping trip to Manzanillo, Mexico.

Upon arriving at our "land" in Manzanillo, we three girls had no idea what to expect. Last time we set up camp on the corner lot owned by our professor, we spent a lot of time cleaning up the surprises left by the neighbor's dog along with pulling weeds and clearing a spot in the sand for our humble abode, the tent. Not only was the dog next door leaving surprises, his owner too caught us off guard. He proudly hails from Minnesota and happens to rent the house next door 4 months out of the year. May is not one of the four he spends at the beach, but the truck with the Minnesota license plates was still next door when the taxi dropped us off at the corner.

And the surprises continued as not only was "minnesota-man" there, but his guitar-playing brother who some think looks like an elderly Leonardo DiCaprio was also in the house. And the fun didn't cease as the owner of the house and wife were in the area from Canada. So our one gracious neighbor turned into a houseful of people looking out for us - or something like that.

Being nervous before we left on this journey, I had e-mailed some family and friends asking them to pray for our safety. And I believe prayer is answered in funny ways. Never would I have expected a houseful of loony neighbors to be a response to the heaven-sent request.

And not only was prayer on my mind this weekend, but one can't help but sit back in awe while surrounded by such beautiful sights. My journal entry one morning literally consisted of:

"There are some things words cannot describe. Putting words or adjectives as the lyrics to creation demerits the song nature is already singing. There are times I look at things and feel like I can't help but praise God or say thank you, but neither feels adequate. Watching the waves crash into shore dumbfounds me. They're continuously powerful, yet nothing I write will ever do them justice. And that's how a lot of life is, I can never appropriately relay what's happening from a paper full of my words. Life needs to be lived to be understood. It's like the saying, 'you need to see it to believe it.' All these dreams in my life can be realized and now is the time to live them out. I won't understand the 'why' until I live. Yet, maybe the 'why' is never to be known, just as the words I write will never do what I experience justice."

There's a certain sense of bliss one experiences while surrounded by beauty. A sense of exhilaration and empowerment. Sometimes I think we need to get outside of our normal lives and be confronted with the splendor presented around us. Being sprayed with mist from the sea and covered with sand from nearly head to toe while squinting into the sun to see it slowly falling behind the mountains is much different in person than it is seen through a photo.

No matter how hard I try to share these moments with people or write them down for my own memory's sake, I really can't do it justice. Yet, there is no way to ignore what I see. All around me, God's grace is sprinkled though-out life. I can see His hand at work in my beautiful fourth graders and I can't deny His creativity when I unwind at the beach. I will forever be surprised at the way He provides and I'll always love the moments that take my breath away. The reality is I guess I cannot escape these moments.

Even though the neighbor teased us and said he was going to turn the volume down, the true beauty is found in the impossibility of such a task.

You can't turn the volume down on the ocean, it's too powerful.

Powerful, as is the creator of the waves and it is within that truth I am awed and very aware.

Everywhere I look or live, His creation speaks volumes.