soul smiles.

I had one of those moments the other week. One of those fleeting moments that somehow make room for the soul to smile - yes, even amidst the chaos.

It happened late one Wednesday night, just finishing our weekly Young Life club. My car was packed to the brim with high school girls. Five different schools were represented there, five different friend groups, so many different lives all piled into my little red car. As I began the drive of dropping them all to their different homes, I glanced in my rearview mirror. And I saw smiling and laughter and chatter and questions and friendships being formed - right then and there, right before my very eyes. And I couldn't help but smile because this is what it's all about. These moments of realization that what I do matters. That this outpouring of my life for the sake of these high school girls can make a difference. Sometimes its hard to see the point of it all. And most of the time it can feel very emptying, very trying - almost as if everything I do is in vain.

But then I think back to the simplest moments like these - these soul smiling moments. And I remember. Oh, do I remember. But I don't only remember their smiles and laughter and jokes and singing...I see Jesus there. I see Him being faithful, Him moving in hearts, Him drawing them close, Him smiling down on this moment, loving His beautiful daughters just as they are - in their broken, masked, just-trying-to-keep-it-all-together form. And loving me in the mist of it all too.

Maybe that's why these moments seem like the soul is smiling. Because it's in these simple moments that His love is revealed - over and over and over again.