Wonder, Awe, Rest: A sacred Gift for the Journey

One long ago Christmas, a group of moms and I gathered with our teens to talk cultural challenges in our journey. Fancy words for passing along wisdom.

With sugar cookies and hot chocolates in hands, we’d navigated through my musical takedown of popular songs and their lyrics. Pop music never had it so bad.

Up next, a mom spoke about waiting on God, listening for his still small voice. To move us out of our comfort zones, she posed a question: what might God want us to focus on?

Then she gave us homework. Not to be completed in the New Year, not to be tucked away in theI-should-do-this-one-day department. No, this momma wanted us to right then and there, in my house no less, spend sacred one-on-one time with the Lord. We were to pray for wisdom and perhaps words, ones we could test with the scriptures for validation. Being intentional often creates space to ‘hear,’ she said, in our harried lives.

She encouraged our group of twenty to find a nook behind a chair, near the fireplace, around a corner, where we could settle our hearts and minds and be opened to receiving.

“No rush,” the retreat leader had said. No problem, I thought. I would sit down, whip out my notebook and Bible, uncap my sharpie and hear some Insta-words and Insta-heavenly-whispers.

Goal accomplished, I’d be waiting outside to sign for the pizza delivery to feed all. Bam.

Teens meandered. Others sought their location, militant hide-and-seekers, flitting into the blue room, one at the dining table, another underneath, while many sprawled in the living room. A blanketed one braved the porch. I had the ‘at-home’ advantage and ducked into my bedroom, stationing myself, crisscross applesauce, in my cozy chair.

A teen wadded a piece of paper. A pencil tapped on a notebook. A sneeze. A giggle. A huff. Others switched places until a quiet came. My blank piece of paper stretched out, waiting. A word, please, I asked. A sound.

A cough interrupted. A sigh. Someone gassed the air. More giggles. I tried not to laugh, which makes silence impossible. The leader uttered a loud ‘shhhh.’ Yes. Focus. After all, I was one of the adults in charge.

More time passed. What if the pizza person rang the doorbell? What if all the girls were bored?

What if this wasn’t my night to ‘hear?’ What if we allowed distraction to win, missing out on experiencing a sacred time together?

That one thought nailed me. I clenched my Bible, trying to squeeze words from the book like a winepress, determined not to move until a scripture or Bible story spoke to my heart.

Then a funny thing happened along the way to agenda: I surrendered. “Dear God, I need you. Whatever You will, whatever You want. If it’s silence, then it’s that.” My shoulders relaxed, and my hands covered my eyes.

My breathe warmed my palms and steamed my face. Then, a word floated down like a snowflake to catch. ‘Wonder.’ What a perfect word, I marveled, smiling into my hands. The word ‘Awe’ came next, followed by ‘Rest.’ My heart gladdened at the sweet abundance of words. Since these were not in my typical vocabulary then, I took that as a good sign to lean into their meaning throughout the upcoming year.

I smiled again, this time for our God. “You are so good.” On the sheet of paper, I sketched a wrapped present, with the lid lifted open. The words ‘wonder’, ‘awe’ and ‘rest’ floated out. I traced the first letters of each, causing me to pay attention to the acronym they spelled: WAR.

That stopped me. My mind hopped to worry and ‘what-ifs. Was God trying to warn me? As it turned out, these words served to bolster me in the most trying year of life as I lost my dad, the oak tree felled our house, a loved one’s dementia cranked up, a friend’s son passed away, and my writing journey required multiply trips, all while raising teens.

As important as receiving the words, I learned we don’t have to find the perfect nook or spiritual posture to discover God or climb a spiritual ladder to get to him.

God isn’t a word floating from thin air. Jesus came down to us in sweet surprise and powerful stillness, conquering the darkest night with his light, bringing wonder, awe and rest.

May the peace that surpasses all understanding be yours.

-Renee Leonard Kennedy