on the beach with Jesus

a metaphor for when you think your worries are bigger than God

please please feel free to text/email me your thoughts about this one! Whether you’re comforted or confused, I’d love to have a conversation :)

When I’m overwhelmed and burdened with worries you come upstairs and knock at the bedroom doors of my soul and tell me it’s time to go to the beach.

At first, I tell you, I can’t. I’m swamped. I’m drowning. I’ve got too much going on, I’m barely afloat as it is, I’m too busy to run away with you.

Okay, you say.

But you keep suggesting it to me. You email me so many articles about beaches that now they’re the only thing I get ads for. You whisper to me in church. I come home from work and crumple into the couch with a glass of ice water and you say something about a sea breeze.

So eventually I’m ocean-hungry too. After a few weeks everything in me wants to run away with you for a day. I want open water and sand and dune grass and seagull cries. Suddenly all we talk about is the sea and after dinner one night I tell you, I’m ready to go.

We wake up at 6am the next day, so we can get there while the day is still young. My room is still a hazy gray, barely lit by the soft pale shine of a rising sun, when you knock to ask if I’m awake.

I’m still drowsy as we throw towels, an umbrella, some snacks and water into the back of the car.

We don’t have to talk as we drive down to the beach. We’re just quiet and happy together.

Although, if I’m honest, my mind is wandering. I’m not fully present in our silence. I’m thinking about unread emails and my growing to-do list and all my unresolved problems.

But I point at the cows and you tell me the names of all the trees and we both are in awe of how big the sky is. As we get closer to the beach, I begin to think, your presence is enough for me.

When we pull up to the beach and walk onto the shore we realize that there’s no one else here today. It’s just you and me and the sea.

We find a spot we like and we throw down our towels and set up our beach umbrella. I put on sunscreen and you help me with the parts of my back I can’t reach.

But the sunscreen is hardly dry before we’re running to the water, rushing into the Atlantic, breathing in the sea spray and beholding the majesty of the ocean. The water is still cold so we stand here in the whitewash, knee-deep in the water, getting ready to submerge ourselves in this titanic cerulean sea.

We can’t hold ourselves back for long. We just want to give in and love the sea with our whole beings no matter how cold it is.

We run through the shallow water and dive into the oncoming swells, and when my head breaks the surface of the water again I feel like I’ve been reborn.

We swim out past the place where the waves break, to the deeper waters where the crests and troughs are just gentle undulations across the flat surface of the water. We tread water here and try to guess what’s on the other side of the Atlantic, how far it would take to swim there, what people’s lives are like on the other shores of this same ocean. We talk about how we saw dolphins the last time we were here. We talk about hurricane season and professional lifeguarding and the size of the jellyfish population.

We swim a few meters closer to shore, back where the waves roll into themselves before crashing into foam. We like to jump when the waves come, bobbing above them like human buoys. Or we dive beneath the waves. But sometimes we enjoy submitting ourselves to the waves more than the challenge of resisting their landward pull. We let ourselves get curled into the waves, tumbled and pummeled and flung back onto the sand salty and breathless. We play this game again and again, rushing back into the waves to feel their force once more and to delight that something so magnificent exists.

Neither of us know how much time has passed but eventually we’re tired and battered from the waves so we go back to lay on the sand. The ground is soft and warm and we’re content just to rest.

We realize that we’re starving, so we eat our sandwiches. As we eat, you tell me stories and I ask you questions and we talk about our father.

And when we’re finished you ask if I’d like to go for a walk.

I say yes, of course.

So we walk down the seashore together, both crouching every so often to poke at a crab or to study footprints in the sand, identifying them as the frolicking dogs or the wild ponies or the beachcombers who came long before us.

Occasionally one of us breaks away to chase the seagulls.

We’re probably a third of a mile away from our umbrella when we come to the place where the dune meets the cliffs, a sheet of rock planted in the sand. We find a narrow passageway from the beach leading up to the rocky ledge, and you ask if I’m up for a climb.

So we hike up the side of the rock, scrambling over sandy boulders with bare feet and untied hair, pulling ourselves up the cliff one sunny rock at a time.

It’s a challenge, but I’m enjoying it.

We move slowly. I know you could climb much faster than I do, but you let me take my time. This isn’t about speed or strength. I can tell that you’re happy just to be with me. You’re not in a rush.

Eventually we reach the plateau, and I’m already breathing hard but when I look behind me the view takes my breath away.

There’s just something about the ocean—powerful and beautiful, ancient and infinite—that I’ll never get over. And from above, it’s only more spectacular. Those waves that cradle the baby turtles and then crush great ships during storms. That turquoise vastness rivalled only by the sky. Those sunless depths with their real but unnamed monsters, that ocean floor lined with the bodies of both the adventurous and the heartbroken. That salty water that still drips from my hair and yet also bumps against the toes of people in nations I can’t even imagine.

“It’s awesome, isn’t it?” You ask me.

I nod.

We’re both drawn to the edge of the cliff, and we sit there together overlooking the sea.

And as we watch the waves rolling onto the shore, you ask me, “are your worries bigger than this?”

What you’re really asking me is, can I stand here—on the cliffside with the sky and the sea before me—and still believe that my own concerns are large enough to consume me? Can I be in the presence of something so beautiful and eternal and still believe that I’m responsible for my own destiny? Can I walk besides you and still believe that I am the god of my own life?

Waves crash in the silence between us as your words begin to unburden my soul.

I know that this is the whole reason you’ve brought me here. It’s as if the whole world exists so you can speak to me, as if these oceans were created for this moment.  You’ve let me remember how good you are, how good the world is, and now you ask me— why do I refuse myself this freedom? Why do I always tell you that I’m too busy to talk? Why do I always want to control my own life? Why do I act like my work is a matter of life and death? Why do I always stay inside, trapped behind my desk and my worries, when the ocean exists and I could enjoy it with you?

As we sit on the cliff I spill out all my fears and ambitions to you, I tell you everything that’s on my mind, I realize that all along what really mattered was you—and I feel free again.

But eventually I get hungry again and ask if we can go back to the umbrella. We crawl down the side of the cliff and walk back down the beach.

We get some snacks, we play in the ocean again, we lay on the sand and talk.

Sooner or later I get tired, too, and you suggest that we go home. I tell you that I don’t want to leave this moment with you and the ocean. I know I’ll forget it all so quickly and fall back into my old worries.

“I’ll be with you,” you remind me. You’ll call me back to the ocean and the cliffside again. You always do.

So we drive back home in a warm silence. The sun sets out your window as we drive back home.

When we get home I take a long, hot shower and scrub the sand out of my hair. We make dinner in our pajamas, and we eat together in a comfortable silence.

As I lay down to go to sleep, I feel the ocean again. I spent all day in the water, chasing the waves, hearing the thundering roar of the sea—so even now I still feel like I’m floating, being washed ashore by an unseen current.

I must have gotten sunburned, too, because my cheeks and my shoulders still tingle with a warmth that hasn’t left me yet.

I breathe deeply, completely at peace. The beach still lingers in my soul.

As I fall asleep, I whisper, amen.