together, we make a chain
When we step onto the beach, the sea swells high and shimmers golden green in the sunlight. A storm matures unseen somewhere off the coast, out over the great deep. I know this, and still I cannot imagine how the water pools so high just here at the edge of the shore, why it gathers and undulates as though held on the edge of everything like a momentus breath, like some ethereal anticipation. I taste the salty intensity, the passion of it, on my lips. I feel the power of it tingling on my fingertips. The waves crest angry, blinding white, crashing like thunder, sifted through God’s fingers, spilling over the edge of His hand. The froth of them spreads over shallows and sand like a veil, like a delicate lace gown.
In moments like these, lovers of the sea grow still. We stop and watch her, savoring her elegance, respecting her sheer strength. We gather the sand in our fingers and let it fall out of our palms, noticing the glint of light at angles iridescent on broken bits of shell. We walk over the glittering landscape, watching. We gaze up, up, silently losing ourselves in the rich blue sky. I sit in a chair and push my heels into the beach. I don’t have to warn my children anymore to take the sea seriously. They are old friends of the mighty lady, and they stand in a line at the edge as the lacy froth gathers around their ankles. They stare at the waves, watching them curl and break, waiting for the tide to slide back, for the ocean to exhale. Their boogie boards sit in a pile beside me while they wait. From time to time, Adam presses his fingers over his ears to soften the sound, which is so loud it washes away every other. There are no birds, no children, no swaying fronds—only waves, stunning and mighty and sculpted.
Beside us, two little boys drift slowly closer to the sea, bored with sand castles and ball tossing. They look to be about six years old, maybe seven, still small and fine boned, not yet leggy and knobby like my son. They twist, like reeds, chasing each other closer, closer, closer to the pounding surf. I hear a male voice—just a word and then a part of a word, just a tone that sounds at first cautious, then chastening, then warning. His voice is lost in the sound of the waves. The boys do not seem to hear the man, whom I guess to be their father, and they do not yet know respect for the sea. This I see clearly, as they chase each other closer, as they flirt with her at the flat, rushing edges; as they taunt each other with slipping and swallowing salty gulps. In minutes, she could gather them up and throw them against the sand, all limbs and confusion. I watch Riley and Zoe, still just girls, glancing quickly toward these boys. They look back at me, questions shining in their eyes, on the edge of rescue. It’s the wrong time for frivolity.
And then the warning voice becomes a man, probably a little younger than me, stout and balding and hairy limbed. His elbows bounce and his plaid swim trunks billow as he runs out to his boys at the edge of the sea. I can see his mouth moving as he shouts to them over the thunderous sound. He points toward the ground. Right here. Right.here. No further. He stands beside them, guarding the beach, watching over their lives, their tender bodies. For a moment, they absorb His presence and grow still and somber. They turn with him toward the waves and watch carefully. But they are young and easily distracted, maybe without the memory of terror. I watch them and think of something a dear friend sent me about a man who photographs shore break waves—beautiful, stunning pictures. He dives into the largest waves on earth to take pictures, and still, he says that he fears the moment when wave after waves comes, one right on top of another, and he loses control and can’t breathe or find his way out. I watch these little boys stand next to their dad and unravel, even with him standing beside. They forget him that quickly, losing track of his pointing, his finger jabbing down, down, down, down toward the unseen sand beneath the swirling froth as he emphasizes the words. Right.here. No. further. They twist and spin and fall into each other, distracted. They drift closer, closer to place where the sea draws back and curls and crashes. But their father is beside them still, and wise to them. He places his strength between, gathering their hands in his own. He is the link between them, positioning them carefully safe. Even as the swell flattens high in front of them and the sea spray wets their faces, he lifts their thin bodies taller. He does not remove them entirely, but holds them stumbling, trembling in the surf, perhaps not to rob them of their fun, perhaps also to teach them a safe lesson in respect for the sea and her elegant power.
I watch and gasp, my breath taken by something profound, an etheral exhale, a soul-deep recognition of God. He–He– is the fatherly link between you and me, the steady strength wrapped around our hands, positioning us carefully when we are too naive of danger, too immature to heed the sound of his warning voice—a word, a part of a word, caught by our spiritual ears as we flirt so close to deafening distraction. In moments aware of Him, we stand still and somber, clearly seeing the possibility for our destruction, noting our small stature, our lack of control. We take heed and focus, but we, by comparison only with Christ, are so young and so easily distracted. We lose our way so quickly. We look, we see, but only for a short time, and then we unravel, twisting and spinning and falling into each other again. I’m so thankful that He never leaves, that He knows us so well, that He remains beside when we lose track of His words, His urgency, His finger pointing down at the froth now swirling around our waists. I give thanks that together we make a chain, you and God and me, that He lifts our tender, trembling bodies higher over the temporal quagmire, the fierce and threatening wake of the spiritual storm brewing deep, unseen to us. A cord of three strands is not easily broken (Eccles. 4:12). I’m so glad—aren’t you?—that He teaches us together this lesson in respect; this appreciation for His faithful and loving guidance, for His fiercely protective father-love. Oh, you and me, how fragile and unknowing we are, how equally unprepared for the reality that our human eyes, our human minds, cannot, nor ever will, truly and fully comprehend. What joy that fundamentally we know one very important thing, one sacrificially blood-bought truth, the one thing that makes these firmly held boys relax, looking up, up, up into father’s face with a smile: As long as He’s with us, we’re safe.
*~*~*
The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory (Exodus 33: 14-18).”
“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”) (Matthew 1:23).
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you (John 14: 15-17).
