Awe by Susan L.

  It took me a long time to understand the meaning of "fear the Lord". It's a rather poor translation from the original Hebrew and Greek texts. It doesn't mean we are to be afraid of Him but rather to stand in awe and wonder of His power/care/love/grace/creation and countless other attributes. He is perfect. His design is perfect. His plan for our lives is perfect.
  Awe: to stand open mouthed with childish delight and wonder. Thundering waterfalls do it. A golfer's hole in one does it. Perhaps a prototype car does it for you or a soaring bird, a mountain, or a perfect, dew covered spider web shining in the morning light. Awe isn't the sole domain of the big stuff.
  Awe is what fills the cup of gratitude.
  Which leads me back to yesterday's post about intimacy and relationship with our heavenly Father. Gratitude is a great way to get there. As we give thanks for the big and small things in our lives that delight us, it makes it easier to see the Lord's hand at work in and around our lives. That's the easy one. As we give thanks for the challenges, a sacrificial offering, it helps us acknowledge that we are not alone in our trials and that help is a prayer away. It's healing for the soul.
  Sometimes, though in the lifeless and lightless places of darkness and despair, it was tough to find something to be thankful for when all I wanted was to have the Lord take me home. I would eventually journal those feelings, written prayers with no holds barred, no censoring, no dressing it up. It took practice to open myself up that way, to hold the darkness up to the Light. Eventually I grew to know the Lord's shoulders are broad enough to handle my brutal honesty. Keeping the darkness in and trying to carry the load all on my lonesome would have been the end of me. These pages were for God and God alone.
  The gratitude was found by simply thanking Him for being there, reading over my shoulder.
  How awesome is that!
  "Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth, and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; Then I will say to those who were not my people, 'You are My people!' and they shall say, 'You are my God!'" Hos 2:23