“I am the vastness of the entire mountain range

I am the sight that takes your breath away

I am in the hills and the trees and the very ground you walk on

Because I made it and it sings my praise

That’s part of what the whole earth

Being filled with the Glory of the Lord is about

My glory is all over the earth.

 

I hold the mountains in my hand

When I say that, it’s not a sign of my strength:

It’s a sign of my love for each one.

I know each animal, bird, and fish that moves and lives and breathes

I know when they are born

And I laugh for joy at the new life formed from the life I breathed into being

I know when they die

None are lost on me; I see them all from beginning to end.

And I think of a time when there will be only life

No death

Because the fulfillment of the end will come

And there will only be light

No darkness, no death

And only Goodness will reign as I have planned since the beginning.

 

The flowers in the fields show my love for color

I’m not a drab God

They fade away tomorrow, because that was how I created them

But they return, year after year, to show my splendor

To show my rainbow of colors

To prove my care to any who care to look for it.

 

The streams rush; they are a foretaste of heaven

Where water is always pure and it gives life, never death

The streams gurgle in a lasting hymn of praise

I love their sound, the way they rush and flow

Their ever ebbing movement

The life that they exude, not only to those who go to them for a drink

But in the movement, the dance they take as they take their course to the ocean.

 

The oceans are mine as well

They swell and ebb; they are never still

Yet they give people rest to sit by them

And I have given them the gift of ministering peace

To the stressed and the brokenhearted

To the weary and the homesick

The fearful and the faithless

To the weak and to the strong.

 

Men try to conquer the water, but I laugh at them

They have managed to control it to a degree

But they will never master the mighty waters

They will never conquer the waters I have made.

 

On the beaches I make my haunts

I hide among the sandhills and walk the rocky shores

I wait there for my beloveds to come

And they come, sometimes stumbling,

Sometimes running,

Sometimes for reasons of their own

But I meet them there

And they walk away, never to be the same again

I do this to those who know me and those who would deny my existence

I touch them all

And they go away changed.

 

The same is true of the mountains

Where I declare my splendor and majesty

My tenderness and my justice

I walk the rocky crags

I make my home in the sheltered valleys

So people may come and fine rest for their bodies and souls.”