Reverent Joy

As a girl, I sang “Take me home, country roads…Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River…” to an eight track of John Denver songs my grandparents played in their car as we traveled to their mountain cabin.  Recently,  just like the song, my husband and I drove the Skyline Drive of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Shenandoah National Park.  The road was carved through the trees with occasional overlooks viewing the valleys below.  
 
Though the colors were just beginning to change, the four thousand plant species hosted by those mountains provided a beautiful display.I instinctively felt awe and reverent joy as I marveled at the genius of the Master artist Who works in so many different mediums.

From the rugged heights of the Rockies and its evergreen forests, to ocean beaches, desert red rock cliffs, dense foilage, and landscapes too numerous to list, the children of God retreat to His works for peace, solace and inspiration. Among His works we begin to sense His majesty, His power and the love He has for His greatest creation, His children. It is for us that all of His works were made, “both to please the eye and to gladden the heart.” (D&C 59:18)

As exquisite and awe inspiring as these creations are, they are only shadows of our “awesome wonder at the good news of the Father’s gift of His Son!” At our recognition of the immensity of this gift, “…We will feel to wonder with grateful awe at the ‘exquisite and sweet’ joy of what Jesus’s magnificent gift has made possible in our lives and in our eternities!” (Elder Patrick Kearon, October 2024)

Our Father is the God of creation, the God of beauty, the God of hope, the God of redemption, the God of joy.