By time I was preparing for my flight home, I felt tears threatening. It wasn't so much because I was sad to go home; I mean, I missed my pup dreadfully! #petmom Rather, I felt so full of the beauty and glory, that I was overwhelmed almost to the point of shutdown. Maybe I'm weird, I don't know, but I felt like I didn't have any more room for the feast of colour and wonder that surrounded me. I suppose if I lived out west, I might become less affected in about a decade or so, but on this, my first trip to the region, it was all-encompassing.
Sometimes people talk about the sense of being small and insignificant when they are surrounded by the expanse of stars in an open sky or the craggy peaks lost in the clouds. King David the poet wrote a psalm expressing this very thought, a feeling I have shared. Psalm 8:3-4 But on this trip, I carried a constant sense of being seen and known in the midst of the grandeur. I could almost hear the divine whisper, "Yes I made all this loveliness, and I made all the loveliness of you, my most precious, valuable, amazing piece of art. You are more treasured than all the stars in the sky, more significant that the highest towering peak. I see what I've made around you, and I zoom in on your heart and soul. As you marvel at the mountains, the angels marvel at you."
I have wrestled with the notion of my worth for most of my life. I know many people share this struggle, and wonder, "Why am I here? What good am I?" On this trip, in the sweeping vistas I somehow caught a glimpse of the value of my being: simply because I exist, I have worth. How's that for something to wrap your brain around? Try it... simply because YOU exist, you have worth.
