From the low place

Well, I have to admit, I've been a little lax. I went to the beach last week and spent three glorious days doing nothing but indulging myself. Walking in the sand, laying in the sun, eating great meals, even having a frozen margherita or two. (sorry, Janet) I went back to the beach of my childhood, teens, and early adult life. Wrightsville Beach. A place so changed, so out of reach for most all of us financially, but so beautiful to see, so bittersweet at times to remember.

I had to have a little teary moment Friday morning, sitting on the sound side of the island, about wasted youth and not appreciating what you have when you have it and the path I have walked that took me away from that beach 25 years ago. When you have a life-threatening disease, I think it is only natural to look back sometimes and wonder...what if. I also believe that God understands us when we do that and He is there to pull us up out of that low place, if we just look up and ask. As I sat on the beach overlooking the Banks Channel, I also realized something else: I could not remember the last time I had salt water in my mouth.

How bizarre a thought was that? We, who have ports for our chemo treatments, taste saline all the time, but it is different. It is sterile, it tastes foreign, it's pretty yucky. It is a taste and smell we know all to well. But the salt water of the sounds and ocean around Wrightsville is another matter. Salt water in the mouth reminds me of learning to ski when I was twelve, falling countless times, swallowing gallons of the briney stuff until I got it right. Salt water in the mouth reminds me of body surfing in the waves, getting tumbled over and over and coming up sputtering. Salt water in the mouth reminds me of getting dunked in that sound while flirting with my first serious boyfriend, learning to windsurf, getting capsized in a Sunfish sailboat and then a Hobie Cat.

So I got up from my chair, walked to the water's edge, reached down and scooped up a handful of sound salt water and put it in my mouth. It was just as I remembered. Really, really salty....really, really great. I could have never appreciated such a thing had I not been away from it, not just physically, but mentally, for so long. It got me over my moment and made it a moment to savor.

So what does savoring some salt water have to do with anything? I think it reminded me that even though we all have moments of regret, moments of the "what ifs ", we also are given divine little moments when a sight, a sound, a taste reminds us of how far we have come...how much we must appreciate...how much even the salt water can make you humble and grateful and so glad to be able to still taste it all. I have seen and you have read within my journal, where God moves in big and miraculous ways. The salt water was there to remind me He appears always among things like the sand, surf, and salt. We just have to reach down and scoop up a small handful and taste. And that day, last Friday, when I looked up from the low place I had been, I saw nothing but an impossibly blue and clear sky.

"I lift my eyes up to the hills--where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121: 1-2