i hated the beach.

I used to hate the beach. But that was before last week happened. I wrote this the days after went to Jaco, to see a squadmate on her 30th birthday.

Yesterday, I was out in the ocean. Water is an interesting thing. It can be gentle, a dripping faucet or a refreshing rain on a hot summer day. It can also be a powerful force. Typhoons, tsunamis, hurricanes. Storms on the water are much more dangerous than storms on land, it seems.

In the Enneagram 2 song by Sleeping At Last, the artist uses sounds and lyrics that reflect the metaphor of love and water. There’s are sounds in the song directly using water: ocean waves crashing into shore, a dripping sink. This comparison of water to the kind of love that twos carry in their hearts and souls that carry into relationships in their lives.

I used to hate the beach. In the Philippines, seven months ago when this whole thing started, the questions and comments came all the time from community back home:

What are you learning?

What’s hard?

How is it going?

Looks like you’re living your best life!!!

“I’ve learned that I actually hate the beach,” was usually my response.

Maybe it was because month one was just hard. It was a stormy month for me on the island of Leyte. I was walking with a small umbrella through a tsunami, it seemed. Waves or questions on identity, worth, culture shock, and major jet lag among them.

Everyone else seemed to find peace at the beach, but for me, it nearly felt like anxiety. But this weekend, we went on an adventure to the beach. I really only went to celebrate Caitlin, because she was the last member of the ‘89 club turning 30. We’d been planning to be together for months, and I wasn’t going to miss it.

So I went and surprised her. And wouldn’t you know, because I was set on going, God brought to me a redemption story in my own life. Because he’s a good writer and he wants me to live a good story.

Friday morning was a late start, and it was full of leisurely walking, coffee, and had lots of plans to write, which never happened. As I said, I hate the beach. But it’s where my people were, and it seemed stupid to be so close to the ocean and not sit on the beach…or jump in it.

Most everyone was in the water, so I walked in as well.

The following hour felt like three or four. Time seemed to stand still out in the ocean. A moment I loved with people I loved. It’s a memory I’ll look back on for the rest of my life and smile. We were jumping in waves, diving under them as they crashed in. Being competitive, I kept going as far out as the guys. I didn’t want to back down. The first time I didn’t dive down fast enough, I was pushed under by a wave. It wasn’t for long. The next several, after I went down, I got tossed around, pushed and pulled. It gave me a peace, though. It seemed backward, that being under water and being flung around would bring me peace. But it did. One of the longer times I was under for awhile, God told me, “Enjoy it. I’ve got you. It’s safe. You’re safe. Just have fun and play.”

Waves come in life, often when we don’t see them coming or when we can’t prepare for them. For a time, we get tossed. We get pulled under and tossed around. But we have a choice. We can find fear or we can find peace. When we are getting pushed and pulled, tossed around by the waves, do we go to the dark and isolated places or do we choose to remember that God is with us, there in the ocean? Yesterday opened my eyes to the power that water has, and how it reflects the power that God’s love and peace can have. But it’s a choice to put it on. A choice to listen.

Oh, and I don’t hate the beach anymore.