Wonder, Discovery, and Being Made New

Imagine yourself standing at a high mountain overlook. You’ve broken through the treeline and are walking along a trail, cut perfectly through a green mountain meadow. You breathe in the fragrance of the crisp air as you wind your way down towards the valley. You pause for a long deep breath, the sun’s rays warming your face.

The trail soon leads into a glade of tall trees as you reach the valley floor. The smell of pine needles fills the air, as they cushion each step. A clear stream, its waters abundant from the winter thaw, flows gracefully, albeit swiftly, along its course.

This imagery is familiar and even if we have not experienced it in person, we know it. We have a level of knowledge and understanding that allows us to bring the scene to life interiorly, leading to an awareness we experience with our physical senses.

In his Spiritual Canticle, St. John of the Cross compares God to similar glories of nature:

“My Beloved is the mountains,
The solitary wooded valleys,
The strange islands,
The roaring torrents,
The whisper of the amorous gales;”
– “A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ,” by St. John of the Cross, Stanza XIV

God is like the mountains…majestic, extensive, enlivening, fragrant, beautiful.

God is like the solitary wooded valleys…tranquil, comforting, quiet, cooling.

God is like the strange islands…we’ll come back to this one in a moment!

God is like the roaring torrents…overflowing, mesmerizing, powerful, mighty

God is like the whisper of the amorous gales…subtle, interior, tender, loving

We have a familiarity with these images, which invokes a response within us, allowing us a certain knowledge or understanding of God. But, St. John cautions,

“Neither are we to imagine that the soul sees God essentially and clearly because it has so deep a sense of Him; for this is only a strong and abundant communication from Him, a glimmering light of what He is in Himself.”

Through the faculties He has given us (intellect, reason, imagination, memory, etc.), we come to know God, but never fully. When God allows us to have revelations or experiences of Him, these are communications from Him – only glimmering lights of what He is in Himself. Therefore, we ought to approach our relationship with God with a sense of wonder and discovery, never a sense of conclusiveness.

There is this interesting line in the middle of the stanza, “The strange islands.”

In comparison to “the strange islands,” St. John says of God,

“God is called strange by the soul. He is not only all that is strange in undiscovered islands, but His ways, judgments, and works are also strange, new, and marvelous to men…It is nothing wonderful that God should be strange to men who have never seen Him… for they neither can nor shall ever see Him perfectly. Yes, even to the day of the last judgment they will see in Him so much that is new…as to excite their wonder more and more.”

I want to share some thoughts as to how this relates to our individual healing journeys.

St. John invites us, “even to the day of the last judgment,” to expect new experiences with God. What would our prayer sound like if we approached our healing journey with curiosity and wonder, expecting new experiences?

Lord, I wonder how you are inviting me to walk through this difficult time with You.

Lord, what do you see as you see me here in this [suffering, depression, anxiety, pain…]?

Lord, I am curious to see where You are leading me. Help me follow You through this day.

Can we turn this same sense of discovery inward to our relationship with ourselves? Healing in our relationship with ourselves is an absolutely essential aspect of our overall wellbeing. And it is one of the most difficult relationships to approach with curiosity over presumption. However, being a unique reflection of our infinite God, there is more to you than you have discovered yet! It is unhelpful – and rooted in diabolical distortion – to tell ourselves things like, “this is just the way I am / this is all there is for me,” or “I’ll never change / never get better.”

Rather, we can prayerfully reflect on questions like:
“I wonder what makes me repeat that thought, Lord. What do you see as you see me repeating this thought? What do you hear as you hear me speaking this way?”

“Lord, I wonder what other action I could choose in this moment [rather than repeating an unhelpful, adverse, or even sinful pattern]. Lord, what do you see as you see me here about to make this familiar choice again?”

It is a practice in self-kindness to loosen our grip on “the way it is,” shifting from clenched fists to open palms before the Lord. Not only is it self-kindness, but it is also a more accurate stance to take before the Lord. God, who is shrouded in mystery, and ultimately unknowable to us in this lifetime, surely has something up His sleeve that we don’t know about! He is, after all, the One who sits on the throne and makes all things new.

“And he who sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’” – Revelation 21:5

Let us continue to visit the mountains and solitary wooded valleys that are our God, soaking in His familiarity and warmth. Let us also visit “the strange islands” that He is, ready for an adventure and new discoveries. With anticipation in His words above from the book of Revelation, we can be confident that His claim to make all things new does indeed include you and me.

Copyright 2026, De Yarrison