I love
spending time with my family at the beach.
It’s a time of new adventures, bonding with friends, reflection and
fresh perspective. I don't know why I
don't come here more often? It seems
that every time I'm drawn to the ocean, its' because God has something special
for me. It's no mystery that when I ask
Him to take me out into the depths of His love, He would bring me to a place like
this to touch my heart. His ways are not
my ways, my ways are too small in meaning and in purpose to accommodate the
complexity that goes into forming the kind of plans that God does. I feel like I've accomplished something big
if I have a menu planned out for the week before it's time to go to the store!
Today is a special day. God invited me here today to share with me a
secret from my past to help me unlock the future and to draw my children closer
to me in a way that I've been longing for.
I'm so excited! I'm overwhelmed
by God's love and kindness. His compassion
for me is so great that even as I sit here now at this cove leading into the
vast, wide ocean, I can feel His greatness, His majesty. He is so delighted as His great plans for my
life are finally being revealed. I can
hear all of heaven rejoicing with the King for what He has done. It's been years in the making for this very
moment. Our lives and the plans God has
for us sometimes take years and years to develop and unfold and I just imagine
God, praying for us, ever so patiently, to reach the milestones that make us
say A-HA! I get it! I see now why I am the way I am and when the
Spirit of revelation comes to rest upon us in that moment, I believe that all
of heaven rejoices with Jesus for the glory of God that is released in that
moment. There is nothing like it! It is joy inexpressible, a tangible
expression of the heart of God speaking directly to mine the words, "I
love you."
When I was a little girl around the
age of six or seven, my family went on a camping trip. I remember my mother being really leery about
the place we were at. There were a lot
of other people camped in close proximity to us and she knew things about some
of them that made her more on edge than I was used to her being. I have a lot of memories from this particular
place, not all bad , but not all good either.
The general feeling that comes to me when I thing back was that it was
not a very safe place and as a small child, I picked up on that.
I wasn't allowed to go outside our
camp without my mom or dad but some of my older cousins had found a trail and
were going in a group to check it out. I
was allowed to tag along and eagerly tried to keep up. When we got into the woods I remember very
clearly a strange darkness that seemed to close in on me the moment I stepped
in. It was the strangest thing. I remember so vividly my cousins, running
excitedly down the trail. The sound of
their breath as they pumped onward and sight of their feet leaping and climbing
the trail before them is still as vivid in my mind as it was back then. Those were the last things I remember before
I found myself all alone.
There I stood on a little wooden
bridge completely surrounded by nothing but the sound of the trickling brook
passing beneath my feet. I was paralyzed
with fear as I felt the darkness close in all around me. I literally have no recollection of what
happened during those hours between being left behind and being found. I don't know if I sat there and cried, if I
fell asleep or what I did? All I
remember was feeling paralyzed by fear and being unable to move from that
bridge.
My memory is foggy at this point but I
vaguely remember seeing a man, whom I didn't recognize, leading my parents to
where I was. I can't recall how I felt
in that moment but I remember crossing the threshold from the woods to the
gravel again and feeling tremendous relief.
There was fear that told me I would never see the light of day
again. The familiar smell of campfire
and dinner cooking welcomed me back to camp.
I think my cousins must have felt shocked to have just come out the
other side of the trail without me. I
will never forget the sweaty, red, panic stricken looks on their faces upon my
return.
It's funny what you remember. My girls are always asking me why does God
allow this and that, and my answer is always the same. God makes all things work together for the
good of those who are called according to His purpose. That's the only explanation I have for a lot
of their questions and I think it's a good one.
We are all so uniquely designed in our own personalities and it's fascinating
to me to think of the craftsmanship of God that goes into designing something
so complex. Can you imagine being in
charge of crafting a personality? I can
barely get it together to create a Christmas dinner! God is so brilliant, so creative in His ways
that I can't even fathom the intricacy that goes into such things! I guess that's why He gets to be God and we
are just characters in His story.
God gave me the gift of a great
awakening today. My girls are all
growing and becoming less and less dependent on me, a realization that's taken
me time to come to grips with. I had the
revelation today that I might just need them as much as they need me. Maybe that's common knowledge for some
parents but this just made my front page news!
I don't mean this in the sense that I need them to feel safe or I need
to live vicariously through them, that's not what I'm talking about. I need them in the sense that they hold the
keys that unlock what has been hidden inside of me for many, many years,
waiting to be revealed. I don't know if
I can explain it any differently than that? Let me share what happened today so
that you may better understand.
When we got to the beach this
afternoon, we set up our blanket, let down our towels, took off our shoes and
voila we were at the beach. Savannah and
her friend took off in one direction, Autumn and her friend took off in another
direction and Sadie and I were left in the dust, or the sand, so to speak. This wasn't really the picture I envisioned
in my mind when we set out. I'm just
saying, maybe I live in a fantasy world part of the time, but I was just really
hoping all of the kids would stay together and say, build a fort or something
right next to me. That way I would have
a few hours to read one of the five new books I just recently picked up or
maybe do some writing? Yeah, that's not
what happened.
The minute everyone took off, Sadie immediately
became agitated over being left behind.
She tried to handle it by looking for sand dollars but after a few
minutes of that she just sort of became really crabby, no pun intended. She's the youngest of three so finding
someone to play with has never been an issue for her. There's always been someone there to dote on
her or help her and now that her sisters are past the "little girl"
stage she's just sort of alone a little more than she's used too. On the one hand, I'm really glad she's only
eight and still very much a little girl but on the other hand it's hard to
watch her struggling with the fact that her sisters no longer want to play the
same kid games she does. She played in
the sand quietly next to me as I scoured the water with my eyes looking for my
other two. Back and forth between the
jetty and the water I searched to no avail.
My heart began to grow more and more troubled as time passed with no
children in my sight. Surely they will come
soon to check in with me? But why would
they?....I left all the food in the van.
I decided if they weren't coming to
me, I would go to them. We packed up
what we had and headed closer to the jetty.
Surly they were there somewhere and I just couldn't see from where I
was. I'd get a closer look and everything
would be OK. They were nowhere in
sight. By this time, I was starting to
feel some rather dramatic emotions. I
knew that there was a place that they had gone to play before that they called
the dunes but I didn't know where it was and was pretty sure Sadie didn't
either. I felt the urgent need to be
with my children but not because I was worried about them and needed to see
that they were safe which is the usual reaction for someone who has lost their
children. It wasn't like that at all, it
was strange. I needed to find them and
be close to where they were because I felt lost without them.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I
came to this realization. I had seen
Sadie at the beach walk out about a hundred yards away from me before she
stopped and looked back. It was then
that my memory was triggered and the Lord took me back to that place in the
woods as a girl. Sadie didn't want to be
out of my sight because she knew it wasn't safe for her to go on by herself but
there was an inner struggle happening that I could see. She would look back at me, then look
ahead. Look back and me and then look as
if she wanted to go on. She was stuck in
the middle of being dependent but wanting to be independent. When she came back to me I was able to share
my story with her. The love and
gratitude in her face told me that she understood and was glad that I
understood her and what she's going through.
She is grateful to God for never taking His eyes off of us and never
leaving us alone, even when we get lost in the wilderness.
Sadie began to laugh again at the
sound of her sisters playing at the dunes.
I was still crying and lugging about fifty pounds of various beach
items. The girls were all playing
happily down at the water and Sadie ran to meet them. I was so relieved to be close to my little
flock again. I sat my things down and
began to take it all in. I called the
girls to me and you can imagine their faces when they see their mother standing
before them in a place as glorious as this with tears all over her face. They immediately asked me what was wrong and
if I was OK? I told them the story of
the little girl who had been left behind in the woods. I told them how I needed them to let me know
what they are doing and where they are going, not because I need to have
control and know every detail but because I don't want to be left behind ever
again. They all just sort of looked at
me in a way that said, we get it. They
apologized with their words but the expressions of love and acceptance on their
faces told me far more than what words could ever express. They were grateful to have a piece of my
heart and to have an understanding of
who I am as a person and not just their mom.
It may have been an answer to their prayers!
Moments like these are precious to
God. I have suffered the pain of feeling
alone a lot in my life but I don't regret it.
God chose to make me the way I am for a reason and if what I've had to
go through has had to happen to make me into the person I am today then I
rejoice with God and all the angels for what it's been. What a great honor to have been chosen for
such a divine story. The story of my
life! You hear people say that in a
negative way all the time, "Well that's just the story of my
life!" When really, God's story is
the story of my life and I get it! I get
to be a part of it! Not only that, but
my kids hold the keys, they hold the keys to the rest of my story. I am so excited for what God has planned
next, I'm getting the feeling that this new season is going to revolve around
my children and my role as their mother.
I pray that God will take me deep into His heart and reveal to me His
secrets of being the kind of parent that every child deserves. I have never been as deeply in love with
anything as I am with God right now. All
glory goes to Him!
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