California air. I took it in. The sunshine, the sausage and bratwurst from a street vendor, the smog and fresh air, the poverty and wealth, all blending together and flowing around me. Sensory overload, to say the least; and yet I felt a part of the city.
The line stretched around the corner and down the street in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, where a block up people walked with Starbucks to Sephora and a block over and down, gang writings covered the sides of barred doors for businesses. And the church divided the two.
Surely, we were in the wrong place – a line – for church?
In front of me stood a man with wrinkled skin from too much sun, a tanned Stetson on top of long curly hair that hadn’t seen a brush for quite some time. His arms were crossed and he occasionally glanced in my direction possibly trying as hard to figure me out as I him.
Behind me, stood a young couple with two kids and one on the way. There was no common denominator in the people I saw. Black skinned, white skinned, and everything in the middle. People dressed in leather, linen, combat boots, over sized cardigans, and short skirts. Hair braided, straight, or curled; those with tattoos and piercings, and those with no tattoos or piercings. Those who smiled, and those who did not. Those who felt comfortable, and those who did not.
And I stood, in line, waiting to go into church. I felt very southern and blonde in my tanned Capri pants and baby blue top. I felt oblivious to the world. I felt out-of-touch with people.
I think sometimes we become so comfortable in our neck of the woods that we forget there are other places, other people, other everythings.
But when the doors opened up to the church and worship began, we were no longer different, but a group of people celebrating God. The energy in the newly remodeled auditorium sent a flutter of spine tingling chills across my body. Behind me stood five young men who any other day of the week, I would’ve locked my car doors and rolled up the windows at the sight of them. In front of me, sat a “girl next door” leaning into her well-dressed husband.
Only God could make so many different people and love them all. People of different walks of life, with needs, with issues, and all with stories of who they are and how they found themselves in a church in the heart of Los Angeles.
Psalm 139:14, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
