The Call from a Distant Shore

To contact us Click HERE
Two gloriously sunny days on the Baltic Sea, on an island called Rügen and the northeast coast of Germany. Then four days of rain. Still, we enjoy fun together, this little family of mine. And we manage to find adventure--actually, I think rain makes most things more fun! 

It's me--not them. I'm moody, just like the weather.

It must be something about being outside of familiar and comforting routines, something about having no art to work on or floors to sweep. The Ferienwohnung--vacation apartment--has soaring ceilings and enormous bright windows, but all I can think about is my cramped cozy apartment at home and all of its clutter comfort. I wanted this space of a week to do zero work and just to be, but I had no idea how unsettling it could be for me. The space here is too white, too empty. Maybe that's why my heart has been feeling a bit echoing and melancholy. 




Or maybe it's the rain and the sea and the stretch of white sand, like blank pages stretching out into forever. All I know is something inside has shifted; I'm ready for something more. 
A lovely, shimmering ocean of work already stretches out to the horizon and it seems I'm only treading water, gulping deep breaths before I plunge into the waves. But what is my goal, what are these whispers coming from over the waters, driving me to risk this impossible swim?  
I want to be brave, but not really only for myself. I want to be brave and to stand up for the ones who have no voice. I want to be brave and to do the hard things, to sacrifice joyfully without these disorienting stabs of jealousy and greed. I don't want to look back and ache for "the things I'm missing," because if I could go back and do things differently I'd only ache for the missed adventure. 



It's haunting, all the same, this sense of displacement and the confusion that sets in at times: "where is home?"  Sometimes what I really want is just to stay safe on the shore--back on the shore that feels safest. But I remember it all over again; I remember we will never find a true sense of "home" this side of heaven and any physical search I may be tempted to perform will not stop this ache. That's why the sea haunts me--it's the constant call from a Distant Shore, the message in every stone, pebble, and grain of sand as they count, count, forever count the immensity of of a Great Father's Love for us. 
The gulls circle above, a shadow of the heavenly host endlessly watching and waiting, ready to swoop down and carry our every burden, our every offering back to Him in the sky. Trash or treasure, Jesus longs to take any and all of it when it is offered as a sacrifice to receive Grace. 
The waves bow down in the cycle of rising only to crash and fall on the shore at His feet, forever going out only to return once again with jagged edges worn smooth and soothing the sun-parched shore...



Where are you right now? In the ebb? In the flow? Or in this new place I've discovered--the pause in-between? 


Linking with Imperfect Prose.