Do you ever wonder who you are anymore? Do you lose sight of your dreams, or who you used to be? Who you dreamed of becoming?
ME TOO!
Life has it’s way with you, and rips you apart. Sure, there are great joys and amazing memories, but there is so much change!
SO MUCH CHAOS!
Your life changes consistently, bit by bit at times, and in gut wrenching chunks at others.
I was contemplating these feelings on a rare, desperate escape from reality, recently, at the beach.
I asked God how to fix the chaos I felt I was living in. Let me give you a few examples:
- We have a grandpa we take care of in our home.
- We have two adult kids with their own lives and opinions trying to survive in their parents home so they can save money for their future, and one is back in college. We all have different schedules, people are coming and going all day, every day.
- We own a business that we run out of our own home, and have started two others-all while my super-husband has a full time job.
- I have ongoing, serious health issues which disrupt and burden others when I cannot do everything I must. This has been an exhausting part of our lives for far more than a decade.
- We have a big yard and gardens, a Great Dane and two extremely quirky cats. The Great Dane must be wherever I am, at all times, and she is determined.
- Between us there are 4 old cars and our business RV to maintain.
- We live in a large house that we gutted 10 years ago and have been remodeling it since. We all fit in this house, but it is a lot to keep up.
- I was attacked in my driveway this fall by a delivery guy, and even though I was able to fight him off, I have struggled with a lot of issues since, and got behind in everything for home and business while dealing with minor injuries, restraining orders, and planning on a court date. I got behind in being able to fill orders for my business, and have neglected my blog terribly!
- Add to that, that we all have strong, independent personalities, and although we are super close, we totally get in each others way fairly often.
We always manage to keep things going, somehow. Yet the chaos…..
So there I was at the beach, crying out to God.
Me: I have lost myself! I used to be good at parenting, homeschooling, taking care of my home, husband and life. I was organized! I focused on gaining wisdom and knowledge. I wasn’t born that way, but I had great mentors who taught me and kept me together when I wasn’t.
I just don’t know who I am now. Life changed so extremely, that I don’t always know how to move on anymore. Just when I think I have it figured out, something else happens.
The best things that I used to be proud of, have been ripped away from me.
Where am I? Who am I? What do I do now? I don’t know how to get that girl back.
Then a still, quiet voice whispers in my head:
Voice: You are the beach. Ever changing, but still the beach.
Me: Wait, what?? I don’t want to be ever changing, in constant motion and chaos!
Voice: You are the beach, like it or not. Life is always changing, it is motion. It feels more chaotic when you fight against it, when you don’t embrace it.
Me: Embrace it? Change? Chaos? That’s ludicrous!
Voice: Who ever told you it should remain the same? They were wrong, life is motion. The tides of your life go in and out, waves crash ashore and seasons change, always altering the Sea, Earth and People.
Wind blown.
Water carved.
Sea tossed.
Storm driven.
Sunshiny and happy breezes, too.
Life is about motion.
Yet you remain the beach. Ever changing, strong, but a beach.
The waves and tides of life will alter you bit by bit in small ways. It dumps sand on you. It rips away sand, rocks, and erodes solid cliffs. The seasons, tides, and storms will tear away giant pieces of you, lay you bare.
It will rip you to shreds at times!
But in each stage of this constant change there is a natural, gorgeous beauty to the beach. Life flourishes there! Birds create life there, creatures come in and out of the sea to live on the beach. People enter and exit, children run in and out of the waves. Brilliant dreams are created in sandcastles. There is great joy here. Who doesn’t love the raw natural beauty of the beach?
Your life is lived among the steadiness and change of the beach. We are not called to stay the same, unchanging soul. We are supposed to grow, learn, become better versions of ourselves, and stay strong with each new beautiful change. God holds us together as we learn to trust in Him.
Why do people flock to sunsets on the beach?
Because somewhere deep inside us all, we know that each sunset is different, the end of another day and another change. The next day we know not what the next tide brings.
But that’s okay!
Because we are the beach.
Everchanging, but still who we are.
Radiating beauty, joy and love through each changing, constantly moving tide of life. I am still there, I just look different.
I am the beach.
I need to stop feeling lost and learn to accept and adjust to each new tide of change.
Don’t forget who we are, don’t give up the things we contribute, just learn to ride the waves.
Because the beach is always there, sometimes full of sand, buried in rocks, or ripped up from a storm.
But it is always beautiful.
It is the beach.
I am the beach.
And so are you.