YOUNG children have an amazing sense of awe and wonder at the world around them.

This is expressed not just in their sometimes-endless questions. What’s that? Who made this? Why is it like that? Who is that for? How does it work? What does it do?

But also in their ability to stop and stare at the smallest of everyday things, like a plane flying in the sky, or the sparkly cobweb between the tree branches or the acorns on the forest floor or the little shells on the sandy beach, as if they were the most amazing things in the whole world.

This sense of awe and wonder helps children to learn, to engage with the world, to see beyond the ordinary to the extraordinary, to find deeper meaning and to encounter God, who loves us all beyond measure.

As adults we often seem to lose some of our sense of awe and wonder as life becomes busy and the world around us becomes all too familiar.  

We are in too much of a hurry and our minds are so full of the everyday that we don’t appreciate the beauty about us or notice the extraordinary or the uniqueness of each fallen autumn leaf nor do we ask those questions that lead to deeper meaning and greater purpose.

For me it is often when I take time to stop and be still, to wonder and to be in awe of the world around me and ask those deeper questions that I encounter God most profoundly.

For it is in these moments of awe and wonder that I appreciated the beautiful and extraordinary world God created, that I find deeper meaning, greater purpose for my life, value and cherish my family and friends and sense God’s unconditional love for me.

THE REV JENNIFER MCKENZIE
Vicar of the Churnside Benefice