Ebb and Flow

It’s been over six years now that my wife and I have been living in a small beach house right on the sand. Having the ocean directly outside our front door has been really awesome and we’ve seen some pretty crazy stuff over the years. Dozens of dolphins swimming at full speed, sea lions lying on their backs as they float by, whales pushing huge plumes of salt spray into the air, abandoned ships that have washed up on shore, and even a weirdly whiney message in a bottle from a distressed damsel one time. But last week we saw something that we’ve have never seen before.

Early in the week there were “King Tides”, which means that the tide was way up causing the ocean waves to crash hard into our sea wall. The waves were so high in fact, and so strong, that they tore out our entire upper elevated beach section and all of the giant sandbags that we had spent thousands of dollars installing. It left a huge mess of torn white plastic all over the beach and reminded me that we cannot and never will be able to control Mother Nature.

But “King Tides” have happened before, so that event was not new. What was new was that on Saturday afternoon, the water receded. And it kept receding! My wife yelled at me to come outside and look at the ocean. In six years, we have never seen the water recede so far and it changed our beach area from its normal length of 50 feet to reach the water… to over 150 feet! We both looked at each other and wondered for a second if a tsunami was happening. But once it got out to 150 feet, it stopped and stayed that way all weekend and I am not sure if it will return to its normal position or not.

Staring at that beautiful pristine stretch of sandy beach newly created by Mother Nature reminded me that things are always changing. And that the only constant in this world is change.

And that got me thinking… It’s really important that we are able to adapt to the ebb and flow of life. That we accept the changes that happen in spite of us, and that we remember that we can change things that happen because of us. But maybe what’s even more important is that we remember that there is one thing that will never change. There is one constant in this world that never changes, a constant not of this world… but above this world!

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, 

through which God speaks to us every hour, if only we would tune in.

~ George Washington Carver