If you’ve ever lived on or spent time near the ocean, you’ll know what I mean when I say it’s moodier than a teenager. These last months, during rainy season, the sea has felt angry; its color dark with sand and silt and other debris stirred up from within its depths, depositing huge heaps of seaweed ripped from its roots by the relentless current and cresting and crashing, while eating away at the shoreline as if it were desperate to consume anything and everything in or near its grip.
If I’m honest, that’s a bit what this season has felt like for me, too; angry, ripped from every known and comfortable thing and deposited on to these shores gasping for breath, with dark waves crashing around and over me relentlessly. There’s definitely been great moments, like a stunning sunset after a rainy day while sharing drinks with friends and soaking in the breath of hope it brings for a better tomorrow. But those wisps of hope have been fast moving and fleeting, with angry foamy crashing waves coming up behind and washing away the remnants into the deep, dark abyss.
(And lest you feel the need to remind me I chose this life, I wasn’t ripped from anything: Yes, that’s true. I chose to come here. But what I anticipated the transition to be like (a few challenging weeks followed by finding my tribe and settling in) and what it’s actually felt like (ripped, deposited, and gasping) has been markedly different, difficult, and jarring.)
But this morning I woke up to only the sound of my air conditioner and not the steady drum of rain on the roof; shifting the curtains, I peeked out and saw what appeared to be blue sky with clouds tinged pink from the rising sun. We’ve had a few nice sunsets at the end of rainy days here but I can’t remember the last time I woke up to sunshine; I was so excited I called a taxi and grabbed a few necessities and headed to the beach. (I had already told my staff not to expect me today; after a long few weeks of running trainings and hosting guests I needed an extra day off this week)
As I walked towards the sea I felt my blood pressure drop and my lungs fill with the salty damp air; the sea was calm, more beautiful than I’ve seen in months. The colors around me were so intense it felt as though God had cranked up the color saturation and I found myself gasping at the beauty of it all. The sea was blue, the sand free of the debris that was piled up the last time I had seen it; the palms were rustling in the breeze and the grass seemed to be reaching towards the brilliantly blue sky, every blade desperate for the sun’s rays as if their very existence depended on it… because it does.
Not unlike what I was feeling, as I settled in with a coffee and my journal. The sun always comes out, eventually. Soon, or so they tell me, rainy season will be over and every day will be like this; but this particular vibrancy you can almost feel to your marrow only comes after the rains. It was breathtaking. And I felt myself release some of the tumultuous dark sea that had been churning in my soul. Hope does that. Hope gives you the chance to breathe deeply and believe that the seas won’t always be angry and the rains won’t always be falling and the lonely won’t always be present and the questions won’t always be haunting.
I sat there this morning, sipping my coffee and breathing in time with the calming seas, until a few hours later, the clouds began to roll in again.
That happens, too. The sun will always come again, but so will the clouds, the storms, the angry seas and the difficult seasons of wondering and wandering and hoping and dreaming.
This is what life is. Putting one foot in front of the other, regardless of what happens to be going on in the sky, trying to make something good of what I’ve been given and making the world a little bit better when I leave it than it was when I came in. By being angry at the sky and believing that everything will be better once the rains stop or I can live on my own or I do this thing or that thing or whatever I’m grasping at for hope on any given day, I’m missing out on the good that can come even through the rain.
And I want to find goodness in every day, not just the sunny ones. Because it’s there. I have to believe that it is.
So I’m choosing to hang on to the peaceful seas and the vibrant beauty of this morning regardless of the state of the sky or my emotional state or the state of the union or anything else might be the object of blame... in the end all things will be made new, more beautiful than the most vibrant of sunrises and more peaceful than the stillest of mountain meadows. In the meantime, there is beauty and love and goodness to be found in the gift of today and every day.
Let us find it, and celebrate.
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