Grateful Reverence strikes a note of awe

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I was run over by the Holy Spirit this past week, it was a most disturbing experience!  One minute I was going about my business and the next I was left a speechless mess fully aware of God’s amazing presence.

It happened while out walking my dog, Abigail, one warm afternoon early in October.  I looked up to the Canadian Geese who were practicing their V formation overhead when it happened, a humility so overwhelming I felt light headed with awe.

I will never be able to fully understand or articulate the grandeur of God in that moment. As I looked around God’s glory shone through the salmon noisily splashing up steam.   To think God created something as remarkable as a salmon whose instincts know to return home every autumn to propagate the next generation or butterflies who began life as caterpillars are now winged beauties prepared to fly south.  This same God put into the hearts of birds to gather on hydro wires so together they may migrate and also instilled within the Canadian Geese to fly in perfect formation.  And then, one final touch God decided to have all the bushes and trees burst into celebratory colour!

If all of this wasn’t enough, God also created me, and you, so we can witness this beauty; an audience to God’s amazing creative genius.  The profound awareness of God’s closeness stunned me into a deep humility and gratitude that could only be expressed through reverence; a reverence for something much bigger, wiser and deeper than I could ever perceive.

As John Milton, English Poet, wrote, “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”

May your Thanksgiving be so full of gratitude that it results in a deep reverence that tunes you into God’s closeness.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Rev. Heather McCarrel