They stopped to rest at the edge of a pond, and while they were sitting there
quietly, a doe and her fawn came down to drink.
“I watched my youngsters’ faces,” he later wrote, “and suddenly it was as if I were seeing and feeling everything for the first time: the hush of the woods, the mist over the water, the grace and gentleness of those lovely creatures, the kinship of all living things....and I said to myself: Remember this moment, put it away carefully in your mind–because you may need to draw strength and comfort from it some day.”
He might not have used these words, but that was what I would call a “holy ground
moment.” Those are times when God bursts in upon our lives in such a way that
we are forced to acknowledge His Presence. It may happen so quickly that we have no time to prepare ourselves for it, and all we can do is look back upon
it after the moment has passed, and whisper, “God was there!”
I had just such an experience the other night. It was the final walk for the dog
before bedtime, and I stood on the driveway with a magnolia tree on my right
and that massive live oak on my left, the branches of which covered me like a
canopy.
Suddenly, I realized how quiet everything was. No vehicles on the street. No sounds of traffic from the highway. In a second, though, I became aware of many night
sounds: the crickets singing, water from a recent rain still dripping from the
branches overhead, a deep-throated bullfrog arrogantly announcing his presence from a nearby culvert. The more I listened, the more night sounds my ears
picked up, until I realized that it wasn’t so quiet after all.
Added to the mix were the fragrances of a Southern Spring night and the aroma of a
freshly mown lawn. And it was such a special moment–a holy ground moment–that I hardly dared to exhale, lest the sound of my own breathing destroy the
sacredness of that flash in time.
Truly, God was there! And He is wherever you are, too. Listen. Just listen!
–Rocky Henriques, www.uticabc.com