ocean Archives - Redemptions Beauty

Surrendering to Sabbath: Week Two

January 19, 2013 by Redemption's Beauty 14 Comments

“What happens when we stop working and controlling nature?” Moishe Konigsberg responds. “When we don’t operate machines, or pick flowers, or pluck fish from the sea? . . . When we cease interfering in the world we are acknowledging that it is God’s world.” ~Lauren Winner, Mudhouse Sabbath

If you lived in my seaside town, you might occasionally see my mini van parked at odd angles on the side of the road. Spot me wandering around in tall weeds to capture the way the light is fingering through the broken window of an abandoned building or capturing early morning fog hovering like a mysterious traveler over the sea. Lost in the wonder of the way the same stretch of beach can be a chameleon canvas of creation.

I walked on sandy shores several days this week, read messages He carved for me in the sand and moaned in mourning over mounds of dead fish. And it all started on Sabbath, when I took the time to stop and listen and see.

And I’m wondering why it took me so long to get here, to observe a true Sabbath. Maybe that is why He says remember. “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” Because He knows how easy it will be to forget.

Want to join the Surrendering to Sabbath Society? We’re a sisterhood of 42 strong, encouraging one another to rest. It all started here.

For further Sabbath reading and a podcast on the web, check out these finds:

Monopoly is the Bane and My Sabbath is a Flop by Michelle DeRusha (and I’m not just posting it because she mentions me in the story, it’s honest and funny)

Sabbath Rest {YMCA of the Rockies} by Kristin Schell

Start Small, Start with Sabbath by Sarah Bessey at She Loves Magazine

The Importance of a Stop Day by Ben Tinker, CNN

Praying for Your Family: a podcast interview between James Dobson and Jack Hayford about Sabbath and prayer. What Hayford says in the interview about his father challenges me.

Wherever your weekend plans take you, may you find your sweet spot, that place of fulfillment that comes from knowing His love for you is an endless horizon and a shoreless sea.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: beach, God, Lauren Winner, Mudhouse Sabbath, ocean, photography, rest, Sabbath, seaside, sunday, Surrendering to Sabbath Society, worship

When Love Keeps Walking

September 26, 2012 by Redemption's Beauty 21 Comments

Cold frothy sinks into my new laces and aqua trim. I look away from the camera lens in time to see the wave’s sly recess back into the ocean, squish my toes in soppy socks. Turn back around to the row of sharpened pencil beaks sunning themselves on weathered wood, preoccupied with each other.

Frame the feathers. Open the shutter.

Sometimes it’s worth soaking in uncomfortable to capture contentment and peace.

I squat to see from another angle and motherhood rises in my throat. These birds, they often rest on one leg but this one, it’s different. That second knobby toothpick, it’s bent and balanced at an angle, trembling.

Pain blends in with the crowd. It takes time to notice it. Stop and look close. Love will tell you what to do.

I want to scoop that bird and hold it in my palm. But I know my good intentions will disrupt the flock. Camera dangles over my shoulder, keeping rhythm on my hip. I continue walking along the shore leaving imprints in the sand. Imprints to guide me back home if I don’t wait too long to turn around.

Sometimes compassion notices the pain and love keeps walking in trust.

I sit on pink and grey bricks to tie laces, walk down the quiet road lined maple and pine. Yellow and orange, they flutter above my bangs like crowds rushing to get out of a burning building. I stop to seize the glory haling golden in the ditch when I notice a towering presence standing in fingered light across the road.

He wears faded overalls and a ball cap. One hand rests on a knobby stick, while the other holds a long silver claw. He’s leaning at an angle, balancing on one side while tossing pinecones from the claw into a rusty wheelbarrow.

I want to help him but I’m invisible. And he is capable.

We all walk with a bit of limp, balancing the slanted world of what falls on the floor and creates a mess.

Stop and look close. He’s tilting the world so you can see straight. Love will tell you what to do.

Writing in community with Ann, Jennifer, Duane, Emily, and WLWW.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: birds, compassion, faith, love, ocean, pain, perspective, photography, sea, trust, walking with a limp

Letting Go Of The Right To Be Loved

July 19, 2012 by Redemption's Beauty 65 Comments

Its early morning on the island, when the light casts shadow on marsh grass and egrets stand stick footed, frozen in stillness. We walk side-by-side, father and daughter down the causeway before applying suntan lotion on sandy beach towels.

We’ve only done this once before, had this time together alone at the beach and I can tell by the pace he keeps, the smile on his face, there is joy to do this with me. We’ve never settled into being comfortable with this kind of being alone. Circumstances separate us when I am just three years old. How do you get to know your father in just one week over the summer?

I’ve never escaped the grief of what divorce does to a family. Maybe I never will.

As we talk about kids and work, his hobbies, thoughts about retirement, he says he probably should’ve never been a father, that he isn’t very good at it. And maybe for him, that was an apology of sorts for not being there for me in the way he could’ve been if things were different.

But when he said it, what I heard was this: You should have never been born because your presence makes me feel like a failure. And I opened my fist full of rights to be loved by a father that day and let those seeds blow into the wind and scatter on the sticky mud. Because I don’t want to be a reminder of failure to anyone.

There are different types of failures. The first isn’t necessarily the sin-type of failure. Rather, this is when we fail to live up to some expectation we have of the way things ought to be . . . . the thing about this type of failure, whether real or perceived, is that it reminds me of my own limits and takes me to a place of recognizing I can’t make this life work the way I want, no matter how noble or worthy or good my intentions. ~Emily Freeman, Grace for the Good Girl

And being a daughter to a father that says he never should’ve been one, feels like pushing a broken down car on a hot day. It takes effort and time to get to the town of relationship and sometimes you just give up and walk away because the distance seems overwhelming.

That doesn’t mean your heart stops beating love in trying to make it work, you just let go of the expectation that it’s going to be something other than what it is.

It turns out Jesus, he stood there holding the key outstretched in his scarred hand the whole time. He walked on the road that day with my father and I. Stood in the place between my expectations and reality, the wounded, empty place that neither one of us can fill for each other.

The hard shell of entitlement to be loved by a parent, it cracked off me and washed away in the tide that drifted in to fill the empty places full. And just like that water coming in and going out, His love is steady and sure, isn’t limited or shifted by our failures or good intentions as a father and daughter.

The disparity between expectation and reality, it’s Jesus.

Grace for the Good Girl by Emily Freeman inspires this post; Chapter 16 entitled Safe, Even in Failure. I’m giving a copy away before I leave on my vacation because it’s just that good. Leave a comment on the blog and I’ll add your name to the drawing on Friday.

Linking with Life in Bloom and Thought Provoking Thursday.