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As a little girl, there were few things I loved as much as trips to the mountains. My folks would pack up our Volkswagen and we would leave the verdant corn fields of the fertile Iowa plains in pursuit of the wilder beauty of the Rocky Mountains. Some of our biggest dreams, God-sized dreams, were born there.
We would camp among the towering trees of National Forests and make hot chocolate and S'mores at our evening campfire. At dawn, my Iowa farm-girl mom was already up, cooking scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast--there is nothing like the smell of sizzling bacon blended with the heady fragrance of pine trees and morning-crisp mountain air! Oh! Take me back!!
Our days would find us in our intrepid Volkswagen, Daddy driving, treating the little red bug like a jeep or a mountain goat depending on the quality of the road that had caught our fancy. The places we went!! The things we saw!! The rarefied air we breathed!! "No clan on earth possesses the memories that transcend those of the men and women [and little girls] who love the high places . . . " Belmore Browne 1941
I remember once when I was probably 4 or 5, looking out the window at the view, saying to my parents, "God sure has a good imagination!" From that first realization at that young age, I have never gotten over it--WILL never get over it!!
Both the depths of Colorado's 1,178-ft deep Royal Gorge,
and the breath-taking 14,259-ft heights of Long's Peak, 
are HIS.
They BELONG to Him!
They exist because He wants them to be here.
"The depths of the earth are in His hand,
Knowing He made, and holds in His mighty hand, both the depths and the heights, fills me with indescribable awe. If His creation is made on such a grand and heart-pounding scale, what must He be like??? Oh to know the One who is capable of such things!! Oh to realize that Someone so great, so mighty, is so personally concerned about me!! It makes me catch my breath just like standing on the edge of the Royal Gorge or seeing Long's Peak and the other "fourteeners," the mountain giants that dot the Rockies, towering above everything else.
My nephew recently had his own moment of revelation when he looked out at the first white blanket of winter and said excitedly, "I'm so proud of God--He made snow!!" YES!! God imagined all this . . . made what He imagined . . . and sustains all He made and imagined.
He is both powerful and tender, infinite and personal. Somehow, He is simultaneously completely transcendent, thoroughly immanent and utterly immediate! There is no one like Him!! I pray that in the ordinariness of daily days, we would ponder the heights of His greatness and the depths of His love for us . . . and be changed by them both.
Where do you connect with God?
What do your special places tell you of Him?
I wish you could have been there to hear him. We were close to Yellow Lake on the way to mom and dad's house. Greyson had such awe and wonder in his voice. I'm tearing up thinking about it:)
ReplyDeleteI tear up every time I think about it too--wish I could have been there!! He so reminds me of another "little" boy I know!! :)
ReplyDeleteOh wow. Such beautiful pictures. Amazing memories. I love our God's big Imagination. How He loves to "show off"!
ReplyDeleteStanding in awe with you. Thanks for sharing Shaunie!
Blessings on your New Year.
J.
He does love to show what He can do, doesn't He Jessica!! It would be awful if He did all that and we didn't notice--how He must love it when we get it and enjoy it as He intended! Thank you!!
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