I pick up my bones, look for a bookend of beauty in a gray day. Buy new leashes to tether furry children to self and head out. For water, salt, sand, sea, respite and rejuevenation.
And she jerks and hurts and breaks free. Breaks new leash. Tears free in a rip of Joy to be here.
This creation place of His is magnificient and I feel her uncontrollable excitement to be here. I press on with dogs and broken leashes and throbbing arm, finger from the headlong rush onto the sand. A dog friend called and she ran and I release her.
But the pressing on and the moving on was worth the small price of pain and inconvenience. My brand new leashes are now both broken and the beach walk, beauty walk becomes the $12 walk. But priceless.
We smell and we breathe and we see all this in the continuing on.
What amazing GIFT was waiting in the few steps forward.
What would have been missed in the turning back.
Glory waited to be discovered when disappointment and small hurt called turn back and go home.
I look down at retractable leashes pulled out to the maximum length, broken sagging wet and no longer useful. They have been mine for minutes and they are ready for the trash. Clips broken, handle broken all in a matter of minutes.
But how God reveals life to me in a moment on this shoreline. How pressing forth so often reveals beauty.
How what I bring and the tools I think are useful are nothing compared to what He will use to work out His will and His plan.
We feel like we are between a rock and a hard place. At the end of our plan. At the end of our resources.
The Patient One and I walk out five years of infertility pain. Excruciating void. Deep pain. But God…. I love the but God parts and the but God stories. He leads us through the beautiful path of adoption. We aren’t between a rock and a hard place. We are nestled in his arms in a very soft place of life and love. A gift of filling the void with life through receiving life released from one mothers arms to another mothers love.
Any plans or tools I have for building my family, pale in comparison. Limp, wet, broken. His is teeming with life and love. Always. Every time.
My furry children and I come off this God gifted beach and sweet soothing words greet. The precious souls who watched the ripping of arm in socket speak words of healing. The are you okays and we were so worried and we hoped you weren’t hurt soothe. That empathetic love that we hold on to from others. Someone saw and someone cared. Doesn’t that always soothe like aloe after the burn—when concern rolls off lips.
We feel loved and cared for and full of salt and sea.
We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
elizabeth w. marshall 