Written August 18, 2010

This morning I was able to walk for miles, something I haven’t done since we left New York.  These days my feet are more likely pumping gas and brake pedals than concrete.  But today I took off my shoes (something I couldn’t do in NY) and let the white sand of the Gulf coast smooth out my rough spots.  This gulf is a place where, after creating the Seven Wonders of the World, God walked in and decided to REALLY show off.

These are the beaches I loved as I grew up, year after year becoming less of a child (perhaps to my detriment).  This is the beach I will stand before in three days to say my marriage vows.  This is the place I go whenever I want to feel the nail marks in His hands and touch His side because, like Thomas, sometimes we all need a little more faith.  This is where I find mine.

The water here is struggling—fighting against man-made disasters to stay alive and beautiful.  As I look out from the shore, I see the algae and seaweed that the storm has stirred up and washed in.  In the tide pools along my path, I see traces of orange and black.  There is a darkness here that is new and unwelcome, and I glare at it like the stranger it is until I am humbled by the realization that only too often, I am the oil in the water.  I carry my own darkness and shadows and I need a cleanup crew the size of heaven’s armies each day to mop up the debris I create out of my attempts to run the world, or at least my corner of it.  I need to be shaken out of my illusion of control.  I used to think that shaking was God putting me in my place; now I know that it’s Him giving me a place to rest.  It’s easier to see that from the shoreline of this beach.

This has been a week of reflection and preparation, and not in the ways I had necessarily planned.  Naturally.  Yesterday I went with my parents to visit my nearly-century-year-old grandmother, possibly for the last time.  She was wrapped in her covers, tucked into bed at four in the afternoon, and she didn’t know who we were.  This woman who gifted me red panties and sassy attitude as I grew up is fading away while I celebrate the biggest milestone of my life, and I found it hard to look at her unless I reminded myself that this really isn’t her, she doesn’t know what she’s saying, she’s no longer the lady I knew.  I tapped into logic and repeated the science of it to myself, the progression of dementia and age that renders her unrecognizable and us unrecognized.  Then, a few hours later, tiredness kicked in and tore down the walls I had built that kept me sane but unempathetic, and as I walked the beach this morning I let it all out.  The salt in the air mixed with the salt in my tears and I was reminded of my other grandmother, who still says that salt water heals everything.  I think about what a child told me yesterday—that God is bigger than everything—and I realize that my faith runs deep but sometimes could afford to be simpler.  I think about the commitment I am making in three days and the blessings and drama that unfold alongside it, and I once again let go.  The tears have passed, they have run down my face and through my soul and stirred up a peace that passes understanding.  I know who really heals everything, and His handprints are all over this place.