We're wrapping up something special on the podcast—our "Summer with the Holy Spirit" series—and in this final episode, we explore the last gift from Isaiah 11:2: ✨ Fear of the Lord (also known as awe).
That phrase might sound a little intense at first—like something we're supposed to be afraid of—but what we discover is that this gift is actually about reverence, wonder, and a deep awareness of God's majesty and love. It's about being moved to humility and trust when we recognize that God is working in ways far bigger and more beautiful than we can imagine.
Here's what we're reflecting on this week:
🔍 Fear of the Lord = Awe + Gratitude Instead of rushing through a quick "gratitude list," we're slowing down and asking deeper questions like:
- "Where is God working in my life right now?"
- "What has He done that I might have missed before?"
- "How is He showing up in my ordinary?"
💫 When we start to notice these moments, gratitude becomes a doorway to awe—and awe leads us into deeper faith.
🧠 Gratitude, Temperament-Style Whether we tend to be:
- 🔥 goal-driven (choleric)
- 💧 deep-feeling (melancholic)
- 🌬️ steady and peace-seeking (phlegmatic)
- 🌟 joy-filled and people-loving (sanguine)
…we reflect on questions that help us see God's fingerprints in ways that speak directly to how we're wired. (Haven't taken your temperament quiz yet? Check the show notes!)
🧤 A Thought to Carry Into the Week Picture a glove on the table—it's beautifully made but can't fulfill its purpose until a hand fills it. That's us. The Holy Spirit is the hand. These gifts we've explored all summer? They aren't just nice ideas—they're what allow us to be filled, moved, and transformed.
🌿 This Week's Gentle Invitation: Let's pause. Reflect. Ask God to open our eyes to His awe-inspiring work—especially in the ordinary. Let's allow gratitude to lead us into wonder, and let that wonder renew our joy and trust.
Thank you for being part of this journey with us. If there's something you're longing to hear more about—intuitive eating, faith-led wellness, motherhood, or how the Holy Spirit moves through it all—we'd love to know. 💌 Just send me a message at kara@karatrochta.com!
Join The Nourished to Bloom Community: www.community.karatrochta.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/karatrochta
The Nourished to Bloom Podcast Show Notes: www.podcast.karatrochta.com/shownotes
00:00:00
So today on the Nourish to Bloom podcast, we are wrapping up our Summer
00:00:04
with the Holy Spirit series by talking about
00:00:08
the final gift of the Holy Spirit that we hear about in Isaiah
00:00:11
11:2, fear of the Lord, or it's
00:00:15
also known as awe. Now I get that fear
00:00:19
of the Lord may sound harsh or even really confusing
00:00:22
at first, but it's really not about being scared of God. Instead,
00:00:26
it's about having this deep reverence, like standing
00:00:30
in awe and in wonder of who he is
00:00:34
and what it is that he is doing in your life. Even when you
00:00:37
don't fully see it, it's this, this gift
00:00:41
of, of fear of hurting or being
00:00:45
separated from God the Father, rather than a fear of
00:00:48
punishment that you know who he is, you know,
00:00:52
and you can recognize his power, his mercy and his presence in your
00:00:56
life and not wanting to be separated from that. And then
00:00:59
that is how you are letting him shape how you live.
00:01:04
And one of the most practical, I think, accessible ways that
00:01:07
we can really grow and in this awe and this wonder, in this fear of
00:01:11
the Lord, is through gratitude. So today we're going to look
00:01:15
at this final gift, fear of the Lord, through the lens of gratitude.
00:01:19
But not just that quick list kind. But we're going to focus on
00:01:22
how gratitude can help us slow down,
00:01:26
open our eyes and remind us that God is moving in
00:01:30
all of the ordinary of our everyday lives. So I'll hope you join
00:01:34
me. Welcome to the Nourish to Bloom podcast where your
00:01:37
faith meets your health. I'm your host, Kara Trochta, a
00:01:41
registered dietitian and certified Catholic coach. And I'm here to help you
00:01:44
cultivate a deeper connection with your body, your spirit and the
00:01:48
nourishment that sustains them both. In a world filled
00:01:52
with noise and confusion about food, health and body
00:01:55
image, this podcast offers truth and healing from a Christ centered
00:01:59
perspective. Together, we'll untangle the deep roots of diet
00:02:02
culture and discover what it means to truly care for
00:02:06
ourselves through joyful nourishment of mind, body and
00:02:09
soul. We're here to dive into the transformative power of intuitive
00:02:13
eating coupled with the rich teachings of our Christian faith.
00:02:16
With every episode, I'll be cheering you on, offering insights,
00:02:20
inspiration and practical tools to help you heal your
00:02:23
relationship with food and and embrace the beauty of your body
00:02:27
as a temple of the Holy Spirit with confidence and
00:02:30
courage that can only be found in Christ. Join
00:02:34
me as we journey together towards a more holistic approach to wellness, one
00:02:38
that honors the wisdom of your body as God's creation. The
00:02:42
teachings of our faith and the unique purpose you're called to fulfill.
00:02:46
You were made to bloom, to come into
00:02:50
full beauty and health in order to bear good fruit for the Lord with
00:02:54
your life. So if you're ready to nourish your body, feed your soul,
00:02:58
and bloom into the best version of yourself, then you're in the right place.
00:03:01
And I'm so happy you're here. Welcome to Nourish
00:03:05
to Bloom, where every day is a sacred invitation to
00:03:08
thrive. Hey there. Welcome back to the Nourish to
00:03:12
Bloom podcast. So happy to be spending some time with you this week. I hope
00:03:16
that you are off to a good start. And we
00:03:20
are wrapping up our Summer with the Holy Spirit series
00:03:24
now. Man, I feel like summer is just going by so quickly. We
00:03:28
talked about this last week, how school is going to be starting soon, and
00:03:31
I remember embarking on this journey of the
00:03:35
Summer with the Holy Spirit series, and it felt like it was going to take
00:03:39
us so long to get through it. But, man, these seven weeks have really gone
00:03:42
by rather quickly. But again, so happy to be here
00:03:46
with you. And today I am excited to talk
00:03:49
about this idea of fear of the Lord and really the awe and
00:03:53
the wonder. And when I think of fear of the Lord and I can. I
00:03:56
can wrap my mind around awe and wonder, it's just
00:04:00
this, like, really being able to
00:04:03
recognize God's majesty and his beauty and his
00:04:06
goodness and his bigness in our lives, right?
00:04:11
And I think oftentimes we are just really not aware
00:04:14
of that. And so this idea of fear of the Lord
00:04:18
is really something that can help us stay anchored in humility.
00:04:22
It's reminding us that he is God and we are not.
00:04:27
And it's in that quiet that comes over you when
00:04:30
you just have that moment of recognizing how big he is.
00:04:34
When something happens in your life and you can
00:04:38
only only say, okay, that had to be God,
00:04:42
right? I think we all have stories like that, right? Where things just
00:04:45
seem coincidental, but the way that the whole thing played out,
00:04:49
you just look back and you're like, well, there's really nothing else to explain it
00:04:52
other than this was God's handiwork. He was moving and he was in
00:04:56
my life. And this is the fruit of that, right? And
00:05:00
so when we can recognize how big he is, it helps us with
00:05:04
understanding our smallness, like we talked about in last week's
00:05:07
episode, but knowing that despite our
00:05:11
smallness and his bigness, how deeply he
00:05:14
loves us no matter what, right? So Proverbs
00:05:18
chapter 1, verse 7 says, the fear of The Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
00:05:22
It's a holy perspective shift. It's about seeing your life
00:05:26
through the lens of God's glory instead of your own strength.
00:05:31
And so this gift keeps us from putting ourselves at the center of everything.
00:05:35
It helps to soften our pride, and it helps us to really
00:05:39
surrender and to be
00:05:42
grateful for what God is providing
00:05:45
for us. But like any gift, it goes,
00:05:49
it grows through use. And we know that part of this, what
00:05:53
we've learned in this whole series is just invoking the Holy Spirit, inviting
00:05:57
him and asking the Holy Spirit to pour down these gifts upon
00:06:01
us. And we also talked about practical ways that we can
00:06:05
use these gifts and incorporate these gifts. And I think that when we talk
00:06:09
about fear of the Lord or awe and wonder, that
00:06:12
gratitude is really one of the most practical and best ways
00:06:15
that we can cultivate and use this gift of the
00:06:19
Holy Spirit. Now, when I am talking about
00:06:23
gratitude, I'm not talking about those, like,
00:06:27
just bullet points, right? Like, list 10 gratitudes. And you're like, my
00:06:31
kids, my health, my family. And it's just kind of all
00:06:35
surface level, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. There's obviously
00:06:38
nothing wrong with being grateful for your kids, your spouse, your health,
00:06:42
those kind of things. But what I want to talk about here, when we're talking
00:06:46
about this all in this wonder and this fear of the Lord, it's really
00:06:49
about pausing long enough to ask questions
00:06:53
of, where is God at work in my life right now?
00:06:57
Where is God moving in my life? What has he
00:07:01
done for me that I've brushed past or has
00:07:05
gone unnoticed, Right? So often
00:07:09
we miss this awe because we're rushing,
00:07:12
but gratitude helps us slow down enough to notice. How many times do
00:07:16
we have these things, like people call them God winks, right? Where
00:07:20
God puts these things in our lives throughout the day that he just
00:07:24
wants us to recognize that he's there that says,
00:07:27
hey, Kara, I was thinking about you. So I put
00:07:31
this in your past so you notice it, right? And how many times
00:07:35
do we just kind of walk on past or just
00:07:39
not even acknowledge it, right? So when we're talking about
00:07:42
gratitude, I really want this to be something about slowing down and
00:07:46
going deeper. Gratitude in the
00:07:50
sense that it's going to move you to where you are
00:07:54
like, oh, my goodness, like, God did that for me, and
00:07:57
you are left almost speechless. So instead of
00:08:01
saying, like, I'm thankful for coffee and sunshine, Even though I
00:08:05
100% am, I'm inviting you into that deeper reflection,
00:08:09
something that really is drawing your Heart into praise.
00:08:13
And so to help you do that, I'm going to offer up a few kind
00:08:16
of gratitude questions, questions that you can ask that are going to invite
00:08:20
you into that, that deeper reflection. And I've kind of tailored
00:08:24
them to the temperaments. The temperaments, cleric,
00:08:27
melancholic, phlegmatic and sanguine. Because we all know that
00:08:31
God wired us differently. And so the way that we reflect
00:08:34
on, on the gratitude and the things that we're great for,
00:08:38
grateful for is, is, can be different between each person.
00:08:42
So if you haven't ever taken the temperament test, I highly
00:08:45
encourage you to do it. It is very eye opening to be able to
00:08:49
start to understand who you are. If you want to take the test, I have
00:08:53
put the link down at the bottom of the show notes. Go take it. And
00:08:56
then some of these questions are, when you know your temperament, you'll be able
00:09:00
to go back and reflect on them. So we're going to start off with the
00:09:03
cleric. And our clerics tend to be kind of our driven,
00:09:07
goal oriented people. They're kind of
00:09:10
task masters. They, they like that to do list. They're
00:09:14
very action oriented. So some of the questions that
00:09:18
we can ask are where have I seen God's strength
00:09:21
sustain me when mine was run?
00:09:26
So what are those times when you are trying to, you
00:09:30
know, you're 100% in that self reliance mode and
00:09:34
where has God stepped in to sustain you?
00:09:37
Okay. Another one is how has God redirected me
00:09:41
recently and what fruit has come from that shift?
00:09:45
Maybe you thought this thing was a priority, but God
00:09:49
actually revealed to you and nudged you to, to redirect you to this
00:09:53
other thing. Right? And maybe you fought him on it, but
00:09:56
what fruit has come out of that shift? And then
00:10:00
how has he worked through my leadership in a way that's clearly
00:10:04
not from me? Right. Maybe he's given you that
00:10:07
gift of leadership. But there's this big project or
00:10:11
this thing that's happened that you just know that
00:10:15
these qualities, this leadership, this thing that you've taken on
00:10:18
cannot be something that you were able to do
00:10:22
on your own. Okay. For our
00:10:26
melancholics, who are our deep thinkers, they're very
00:10:29
emotionally attuned. We can ask, where has God met
00:10:33
me? In a place of quiet longing.
00:10:38
Maybe you've been lonely or
00:10:41
distracted or second guessing something.
00:10:45
And so where has God met you in this place of longing?
00:10:49
What beauty has he allowed you to experience that's
00:10:52
stirred something deeper than words,
00:10:56
Right? Maybe that means like you have experienced
00:11:00
something. Piece of scripture Artwork, music, that
00:11:06
you just feel it in your body and there's almost no words to explain
00:11:10
that. And then how has he brought meaning out
00:11:13
of something that once felt heavy?
00:11:17
Maybe you're in a season of grief and
00:11:21
you're looking for clarity or comfort or peace. How has he brought meaning
00:11:25
out of something that once felt heavy?
00:11:29
Okay. And for our phlegmatics, they are our peacemakers.
00:11:32
They are calm, they are steady, they are quiet. Strength.
00:11:36
It takes a lot to rattle a phlegmatic.
00:11:40
So we can ask, when have I felt a deep, just
00:11:43
unexplainable peace in a normal moment,
00:11:47
kind of that calm in the storm?
00:11:50
Where has God used my presence to bring comfort to someone
00:11:54
else? Where have you used that
00:11:58
peacemaker strength that he has gifted you with?
00:12:03
And then when did he gently nudge you forward? And how did
00:12:07
he show up there? One thing about phlegmatics is
00:12:10
they can be hard to motivate and move into action,
00:12:15
right? So we can see that if
00:12:19
you tend to have these phlegmatic tendencies, we. If you've taken
00:12:22
a step forward, right. Where was God gently nudging you forward?
00:12:26
And then how did he show up there for you?
00:12:30
And then for the sanguines, they are our joy
00:12:34
seeking, fun loving, people oriented
00:12:37
person. This is my primary temperament.
00:12:41
So when did I feel joy this week? And how can I trace
00:12:45
that joy back to God the giver?
00:12:51
Right? So what I love, kind of this is like
00:12:55
sometimes when we're moving forward, we have and taking steps, we have no
00:12:58
idea, right, what's around the next bend. But when we
00:13:02
look back, we can connect all those dots, right? And that is
00:13:05
a beautiful thing to be able to reflect back on to see how God has
00:13:09
moved and worked in your life. And so
00:13:14
when has joy, when have you experienced joy in this last week?
00:13:17
And. And how can you see that God made it possible
00:13:21
for that joy to be in your way? Who
00:13:25
has God placed in your life recently to encourage or
00:13:28
uplift? Me, Right? And you
00:13:32
can even go as, who has God placed in your life recently for you to
00:13:36
encourage and uplift? Right. Since Sang wants him to
00:13:39
be very people oriented.
00:13:43
Right. When. When has God put people in your life,
00:13:47
that sense of community? And then where has
00:13:51
he surprised me lately in a conversation, an
00:13:54
encounter, or just a good laugh? When I think about a
00:13:58
good laugh over this last week, I was working with one of
00:14:02
my clients and she was telling me about this situation around
00:14:06
a meal, and she was just talking and
00:14:09
she was talking about how her daughter came over
00:14:13
for dinner and she's like, yeah, and she brought five guys. And she's talking about
00:14:17
this, and I'm like, I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, her daughter
00:14:21
brought five guys to dinner. Like, I, I mean that I,
00:14:24
I'm not understanding the situation. And then she mentioned something about the
00:14:28
hamburger surprise, and I realized she was talking about five guys in the restaurant.
00:14:32
And it was just one of those moments where it was like, man, I needed
00:14:35
that laugh, but it was just so funny. But you
00:14:38
know, when those things happen, right, that God put that in, in your path
00:14:42
and in that, in your presence. One, for you to
00:14:46
recognize, right? And two, for you to just be
00:14:49
appreciative and, and really just be like, okay, thank you,
00:14:53
Lord. Right. So here's this kind of gentle invitation for you
00:14:57
over this next week to really start asking for better
00:15:00
questions. Go deep. Do not be
00:15:04
afraid of going deeper. The Lord will a hundred percent meet you there.
00:15:07
And it is a really beautiful opportunity for you to invite the
00:15:11
Holy Spirit in and let gratitude
00:15:15
really be that doorway for deeper faith. I think gratitude is
00:15:19
beautiful because it does just allow us to stop and recognize God's
00:15:23
present in our lives. And then, you know, asking the Holy Spirit to help
00:15:27
you see your life through that lens of awe and wonder
00:15:31
and the goodness and the bigness and the majesty and the beauty of
00:15:35
God and who he is and how
00:15:39
in his bigness, in his majesty, he still
00:15:42
chooses to move and work in your
00:15:46
life because he's not far off. He is so
00:15:50
near to each one of us and he's moving out of
00:15:54
love. And when you recognize these things, it's going to be those
00:15:58
moments where you just find yourself whispering, only God could
00:16:01
have done that. And how much truth there is and how much
00:16:05
that. That fills you with love and hope.
00:16:09
And so as we're wrapping up this series on the gifts of the Holy
00:16:13
Spirit, I came across this metaphor and a devotion. And it wasn't
00:16:17
really necessarily talking about the Holy Spirit, but I thought it was a really good
00:16:21
visual for us. So I want to leave you with a simple image. So I
00:16:25
want you to imagine this glove sitting on the table.
00:16:28
It might be a very well made, beautiful,
00:16:32
useful glove in theory, but on its own,
00:16:36
it just sits there. It can't move,
00:16:40
it can't do the thing that it was created to do
00:16:44
until a hand fills it. So you and
00:16:48
I, we're that glove, and the Holy
00:16:51
Spirit is the hand. So these gifts that we've talked about
00:16:55
all summer, wisdom, understanding, counsel,
00:16:59
fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.
00:17:02
They're not just character traits that we're trying to develop on our own.
00:17:06
These are spiritual gifts that fill
00:17:10
us when we make space for the Holy Spirit to move.
00:17:13
So when we let him in, when we pray for these gifts, when we reflect
00:17:17
on them and we respond to them in trust and love,
00:17:21
he moves and he equips us and he transforms
00:17:25
us. And we experience that transformation
00:17:29
over the course of our lives. Right? One of my
00:17:32
favorite quotes is, God's plan for us takes a lifetime.
00:17:36
And when you can stop and you reflect on that, that is such a
00:17:39
beautiful reason for that awe and wonder.
00:17:44
So I thank you so much for walking through this series with me
00:17:48
and I'd love to know where you want to go from here. On the
00:17:51
podcast. There is a topic, a question that
00:17:55
you have, something that you want me to explore more.
00:17:59
I would love to hear from you. Simply send me an
00:18:02
email@kara.it's
00:18:04
karaharatrokta.com so karaarah
00:18:08
trakta.com send me a message. Let me know what you want
00:18:12
to explore next on the podcast or if there's something you'd like me to go
00:18:15
deeper in or something that you would like to know more about.
00:18:19
Whether it's something with intuitive eating,
00:18:22
mindset, coaching, mission, coaching,
00:18:25
temperaments, purpose,
00:18:29
middle, motherhood, whatever it is, send me a message. I'd love to hear from you.
00:18:33
Until next week, Remember, beauty held is the seed, beauty shared is
00:18:37
the flower. It is your time to bloom. Take time
00:18:40
to stop and smell the roses and be in awe
00:18:44
of how God just perfectly created all the things in your life.
00:18:48
We'll talk soon. Take care. Bye.