Vast and wide

We’re on this magical trip for our ten year anniversary, my husband and I. We packed our bags and set out to drive three different places for one week. It’s been all sorts of fun and crazy, magestic and sweet, and relaxing. A perfect time to reconnect.

We were driving to our last location yesterday, a quaint cottage in Kitty Hawk. We were crossing a bridge with water on both sides. The waves came up and down and the buoys in the water slipped below and peered up again with each wave. And I thought of life. We do the same, don’t we? We sink down and bob up again as if to say I’m still here, still trying.

I couldn’t help but think of my children - those sweet innocent creatures I was given to love and nurture and eventually, set free. My job as their momma is to make sure they know exactly how loved they are and prepare them with whatever tools they need to navigate this thing we call life. I’m sure there will be times they’ll sink and times they’ll rise and I can only hope I have prepared them to do each of those tasks with grace and resilience and faith that each pull down will only result in a bounce back up.

I’m currently sitting here listening to the ocean and typing up my words because I’m one of those people who gets the urge to write when there’s nothing to write on. It never fails. I’ve reflected this week and I’ve reconnected so deeply with my husband - we’ve been able to throw our worries to the wayside and focus on the love between us that has helped us to build this beautiful life we’ve had so far. I’m thankful for him every single day.

And I think of our children again. I am unsure how we managed to get so lucky to be able to parent them. Our kids are good. They’re great, actually, and their hearts are as big and wide as this ocean. Their dreams are huge and their faith is unending. I hope they know how much they’re loved. You see, there is no love quite like a mother’s - it will move mountains, part oceans, and heal the wounds we are guaranteed to get along this journey.

This ocean is vast and the clouds appear over the sun casting a haze for as far as I can see. And it’s life again. Hazy and uncertain, sunny and full of rain, smiles and tears and everything in between. What a journey we live through - a fluid, constant changing vessel we captain.

The seashells are plentiful here, cracked and broken. They’ve been tumbled  and washed ashore. Some are perfect; they are different. They are each beautiful, even when they’re rough around the edges and I think of people.

My wish is for my kiddos to know how beautiful they are, even when their cracks and wounds are showing, even when they’ve bobbed up and down, even when they feel like sinking. It’s guaranteed life will do us that way because like the ocean, it changes and moves and can be unpredictable. But I’d like to think that even on the worst day, we never lose sight of the best day - even when we sink like that buoy, we’ll rise again and live. I’ve seen a different side of my own life this year and I must say, I like it over here.