The Rhythm of UsSample

The Rhythm of Awe

I’ve always been the early riser in our house. Most mornings, you can find me in the office, sitting in my gray chair, black coffee in hand, as I wait for my family to stir. This daily rhythm—before all the kids wake up before the patter of little feet resounds on the stairs, before lunches and backpacks head out the door to school—this daily morning hour helps set the tone for the entire day.

One of my favorite parts of the morning is when Jenni comes strolling down the stairs, usually still in her pj’s, seeking out her first sip of coffee for the day. It never ceases to amaze me, I swear—every single time, my breath catches. I can’t help but stop and stare, just in awe of that woman as she walks down the stairs. She literally takes my breath away. As much as I like the initial morning quiet, it’s this moment, this rhythm I look forward to most every day. When I see her coming down those steps, I just can’t help but think, Wow! That woman is my wife!

Every morning that we wake up, we have a choice. We can enjoy the day or barely survive it. We can choose to view our spouse as the remarkable gift we’ve been given or as simply a fixed part of our ordinary life. We can receive each day with joy and gratitude as a fresh opportunity to know and discover them more or believe the lie that we already know all there is to know of them. The choice is ours. Awe is about how we see. Thriving couples choose to see the world with fresh eyes of awe and wonder.

Awe is defined as gratitude, joy, and wonder. A deep sense of admiration and inspiration. It shatters your expectations, it does not lend itself to easy classification. It automatically stops us in our tracks and takes our breath away. Awe is something set deep within all of us, something we were born to experience on a regular basis. It waits, ready to be awakened. As Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us, “God has planted eternity in the human heart.” Without regular doses of awe, our souls can actually begin to wither. As Albert Einstein noted, “The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. . . . He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.” If we lose our sense of awe or admiration for each other, we’re headed quickly toward disaster. We were made for awe, for life, and to revel in deep gratitude for the great gift of life, of relationship, of each other.

Day by day, as we choose to practice seeing the world in this miraculous way, we find our ordinary transformed into extraordinary. We discover magic right in the middle of our mundane. The starry night sky, the sunset lighting the clouds on fire, my gorgeous wife walking down the stairs in her pj’s each morning. What before seemed normal becomes divine when I allow God to open my eyes to see the beauty within it.

PRACTICE:

• Start a gratitude journal of things you notice about your spouse.
• Send your spouse a quick text every morning or evening with just one thing you’re thankful for about them.
• Take an awe walk together along a tree-lined trail.
• Pray for eyes to see the magic hidden in the middle of the mundane. Make a goal to find at least one moment of awe every day.