Ocean

We’ve had some rough years of late and have realized the need for extended family vacations. We weren’t able to fit one in last year and so were really desperate for a break.

But then my insecurities about living on support kicked in. We just finished fundraising for a new car six months ago and now we’re heading out on vacation. I felt guilty. I don’t feel like I can ask people to send us on vacation. I remember in my salary days how hard it is to make ends meet and to try and support people who’s ministry requires them to fundraise.

I couldn’t even bring myself to post photos on Instagram without practicing some vulnerability and sharing how I felt. Someone suggested I write in the sand what needed to be washed away and let the waves take it from me.

What a beautiful idea. So I searched a bit for what I brought with me that I needed to leave here with the ocean… The prayer of St. Francis came to mind… injury, despair, darkness, sadness, these are among my traveling companions.

I found a stick and wrote them in the smooth sand, one by one. Injury. Others have written that one for me. Then comes a lack of hope, loosing my light and capacity for joy.

As soon as I was done writing, this large wave came in and immediately washed away injury, despair, and darkness, leaving sadness to be taken away by the next wave from the relentless ocean. Just like that. All gone. And I felt cheated somehow. Wanting to hang on to those things a little longer. Am I doing that in real life? Or do the words just keep being replaced? Both I think. But the action of the ocean is the grace of God. Thorough, dependable, indiscriminate, unrelenting grace. Every day, as reliable as the tides, the grace of God crashes onto my shoreline, erasing all the words the have been scribbled there.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me bring love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not

so much seek to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

To vacay or not to vacay…

We’re on a week-long beach vacation right now. Not because we really have the means (or the leisure time for that matter) but because we’re desperate for a break and this place does that for all of us; two worn-out parents, an active and enthusiastic nine-year-old, and two teenagers. It’s a real magic trick to find a happy place for five very different people with five different sets of needs.

But doing something as big as this makes me feel very insecure. I’m so very aware that we live off the generosity of other people. People who work as hard as we do and have their own needs, but who also believe in the purpose of our work and have committed to enabling this work to continue.

It’s been two years since we’ve taken an extended vacation and it’s going to take a while to pay the balance on our credit card. I know that carrying a balance on a credit card isn’t fiscally responsible, but it’s the only way to get it done.

So if you see our posts on social media and feel jealous or judgey, just know there’s a lot more going on than the pretty pictures you see and rechannel those thoughts into a prayer for us to experience some renewal, rest and the chance to reconnect with God, with ourselves, and with each other.

And thank you. To everyone who gives and prays and visits or checks in with us, thank you. Your gifts of love are so important.