Our time at the beach was beautiful. We reminisced. Shared meals and laughter. Tent time and great conversations. Beach walks and shell hunts. Sibling banter. Old patterns back again.
New frustrations and new understanding. Regretted words and unsaid ones that want to be spoken. Insecurities and doubts. Judgment and shame. Wounds and grief. Tender moments. Tears came.
We are loved. By each other and the One who grieves with us.
It came to me as I journaled the day after I returned home from vacation. My kids and I are collectively grieving. Sorrow for what was, what is, and what always and never will be.
We don’t say we are grieving because we don’t know that we are. But we are.
Does It End?
Aren’t all of us living with loss of some kind? Does grief end? Is it ever really finished? I mentioned this to a friend and to my spiritual director and neither disagreed and neither gave answers.
I’m learning to let the grief come instead of pushing it away. To sit with it instead of distracting myself. It’s not easy and it’s not supposed to be.
My friend, Wendy, says it perfectly in a poem she wrote called Always Changing Never The Same. Grief doesn’t replace joy. There is plenty of joy to be had in the midst of sorrow. Grief and joy share space in our hearts. They always have and they always will.
Always Changing Never The Same
by Wendy Booth
The power of the ocean.
The rising of the tide.
The crashing of the waves.
Always changing, never the same.
Every sunrise commences slow displaying the fingerprint of God. A one and only sunrise to announce a new day.
Always changing, never the same.
Pelicans skimming the never ending surf. Searching for a seafood platter. A smorgasbord worth diving for. Sanderlings racing at the endless waves. Snatching coquina clams as they rise from the depths of the sand. Dinner from down under.
Always changing, never the same.
I come here year after year. Family and friends, some here some not. Lives changed by joy and lives afflicted by pain. New babies touching the ocean for the first time. The grey and weathered getting their last glimpse before Heaven.
Always changing, never the same.
God meets me here no matter the time or season. In every wave I hear His voice. I feel Him in the wind as He wraps His arms around me. As vast and powerful as the ocean I see He is so much more.
NEVER CHANGING, ALWAYS THE SAME.
