Sand is Sand

I just returned from a week at Hilton Head with my brain unfuzzied yet one more time by ocean breezes…well, actually winds this week. Steve and I believe we need to get to the beach every few months or so to let the waves and the roar and the wind clear and blow out the space between our ears.

I sat in my fold-up chair (the kind that unfolds into four points for legs and collapses into a sling for easy carrying – wonderful invention) and let the sun work its magic. I have three positions for beach bumming and I alternate them every few minutes or so: nose in a book, head flung back and face to the sun, or eyes peeled for dolphin or those long undulating lines of pelicans searching for bait fish. I stay there until my skin feels crinkly and Steve pokes me and says “you’re done.”

The other day, though, as I sat and thought, it occurred to me that I always assume the beach changes to meet my mood. I closed my eyes and realized that I could have been at any age in my life or at pretty much any beach.

I was there with my teenaged daughter and her friends, giggling and watching for surfers. I treasured my first trip to the Outer Banks with Steve alone with no kids on an October week when the air was cool and I sat watching him fish. I cried one July as I watched a mom holding hands with her preteen daughter and thought about the young woman I had left at home alone for the first time, afraid that I had lost her for good. I watched my handsome son walk away and wondered if he knew how much I loved him. I stood in the waves with my grandkids and shrieked when a wave caught me by surprise. I walked with Steve on a Mother’s Day with tears in my eyes as I watched other happy families splashing in the surf.

Every time I go to the beach my circumstances, and usually my mood are different. And I just assume the beach changes with me. It doesn’t.

I have been so many different people during my life. And my God is faithful. He is the great I AM and never changes. Isn’t it a beautiful thing to have Someone we can count on to be there and to be the same no matter who we are when we approach Him?

I Samuel 15:29; Malachi 3:6; James 1:17; Deuteronomy 7:9;
He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man, that He should change His mind…I the LORD do not change…Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows…Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands.