Back Camera

It is often while walking on the sands of a Beach where I truly comprehend my smallness in the universe. Just as the shells that wash up as noticeable gifts for me, I explore how my life in the natural is nothing but a fleeting gift from God…a breath of wind blowing by in all of it’s different velocities and directions. When I see the sea shells that were somehow sheltered on their journey to become sand, I feel protected too. I feel connected.

Anne walks Galveston Beach

It’s a juxtaposition. It is all free when I walk on a beach and yet I become rich. Oh, I expend energy to pay for the walk but it is a homeostasis energy that is equaled by what I gain. My heart and soul fill up with fuel, my lungs expand with salty oxygen, my hair blows in time with the gusts, my muscles ebb and flow like the tides and my smile widens with sunny joy. The skimming beach birds skip alongside me and share their space, always keeping a wing flap ahead of me, as we look together toward the timeless waves and foam working toward the shore.

I imagine great wonders under the waters and look with creative eyes toward rising fins of sharks, dolphins and strutting jaws of pelican. I watch the diving birds pick up their fleeing prey and whisper a prayer for both as the circle of life spins. I see clumps of Sargassum seaweed full of shells and fish rolling toward me and imagine pirates of old grabbing it with hooks and nets for fuel, medicine, food or hidden treasure.

My walk on the beach zig-zags toward sheltered shells in trapped tidal pools and I carefully observe them for unbroken shells and especially for the commerce of mostly whole sand dollars. Finding an unbroken sand dollar is rich, it’s empowering, it’s a blessing. I wonder how far the shells have traveled and I look at their majestic design and shining, gentle colors…all different, all with perfect purpose. Most collected shells end up in a display bucket but some are maneuvered by a glue gun as a crafty gift.

Beach shells……………………………Become Wreaths

My heart is full of the beauty around me and my connection to it all and I hope that everyone can experience the cleansing feelings of a walk on the beach. I picture friends and family I know who are old, lonely or sick and I pray for them to see the healing beach in person again or in their sweet dreams.

Most of my memories of beach trips from the past were activity driven…let’s get there fast, let’s hurry, let’s jump in the water, let’s go,go,go! As a child it was more about gathering stuff to take to the beach rather than getting something from the beach. Now, I ponder the design of it all and am amazed that I missed it in my younger days but I know that my thoughts are in a different season and relevancy now. It is glorious to ponder that the gulf sea around me has secrets, gifts and routes leading to deeper imagined thoughts and adventures. As I walk, I wonder if my parents wondered too…so many years ago when they packed us ten children into a station wagon, with towels and toys so we could roast hot dogs on the beach and play in this same sand? Did they look out at the sea and wonder what was below?

Emmett & Gerrie Stewart circa 1960

The blue sky above me is searching also. It has fingernail scratch marks as if the clouds are trying to see what is beyond them too. Even the jet airplanes get into the act as they make their mark trying to help the clouds push through the boundaries of the sky and beyond. The merging of the forever sky and sea brings hope to my own heart as I think about growing closer to both.

Cloud “Sky Scratches”……………..”Jet Scratches” too!

Without a doubt, in a storm, trembling waves of the sea could caress or rock you to peril and the shell covered sea floor could slip and shift, with rip tides possibly carrying you where you never wanted to go. But a gentle walk is just mostly a connection that allows for appreciated boundaries of shelter…even before a storm. A stormy sea is predictable nowadays with our radar scanning news and people by the sea can prepare with vigor as the fear and excitement of an impending storm looms. But just as in life, storms can hit when they are least expected, like a thief in the night. As I wrote in “Happy Jesus Nurse: Heart Lessons”, http://bit.ly/HappyJesusNurse , “Storms can come in all forms…a phone call, a diagnosis, a betrayal, an estrangement, discovery, a lie, a revelation, a confession, a death-even an actual meteorological storm. Storms of life are tests, revelations, and building blocks of our inner strength-and yes, often much good can come out of a storm, just like a real storm has rainbows. It is in adversity that we meet ourselves and learn or change our character.”

Anne & John at the Sea

So, when I am in a stormy mood or period of life, a testing time of my strength, I go to the sea. I take my hubby John and we picture the timeless waves, tides, birds, and fish and seek the reminder of protection from the strong sheltered shells…the shells that have weathered so much to be at my feet and offer themselves as gifts. I am then reminded of the designer of the shells and sand and the ultimate protector from stormy seas of life, as described in Luke 8:24- “And they came to him, and awoke him saying, Master, Master, we perish. Then He arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm” (KJV)

With those words, I allow trust and peace to come in to my heart like a gentle wave. I scoop up the shells in my hands; I look to the sea and I smile.