WOW

Once, many years ago we were traveling home late on a clear summer night. When we finally turned into our driveway we all were eager to tumble into our beds. We counted the children and came up one short. We discovered it was Chuk who was missing. I went back to the car to see if I had left him sleeping in the car. I thought I would find him asleep in the back seat.

The car was empty. I turned to go in the house and caught a little shadow in the darkened yard out of the corner of my eye. There was Chuk all of three feet tall, standing in the damp grass in the middle of the yard unmoving. His face was turned almost directly upward. When I walked up to him I was silent. We stood there together for a moment and then he let out a breathy WOW at the wonder of the distant suns burning in the night sky overhead.

I scooped him up, carried him to his bed and tucked his quilt under his chin with a prayer that he would never lose is child-like wonder at the creative wonders of God. How long has it been since you worshipped God in the simplicity of a face upturned at the night stars.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows his handiwork.” “O Lord, our Lord how majestic in your name in all the earth who has set your glory about the heavens – ” “When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you would visit him?” (Psalm 8 and 19)

Ken Pierpont
Brook Place
Hinsdale, Illinois
March 12, 2007