PERSPECTIVE

Today we go home after ten days at the beach condo. Ten days seems to be the right length of time to be away. I have found three or four days refreshing, but too short. A week is nice, but I always feel I would like to stay longer. At ten days I am ready and wanting to go home. It seems that time frame works the same for me on any trip, whether I am at the beach or some far flung destination elsewhere in the world.

Yesterday afternoon while Cissy and I were walking on the beach, we both mentioned our desire upon return home to ramp up our action plans to eat better and exercise more. I have been lazy and indolent, to say the least, for the last ten days. I have eaten well (plenty of seafood) and slept much.

This morning, when I woke up before six, I decided it was a good opportunity to start my plan. I put on my running shoes and headed out for the beach before sunrise. The tide was low so there was a wide expanse of solid sand to run on. Sea and sand looked grayish at that time of day.

I began ambling along the beach at a slow trot, and noticed a form well ahead of me. As I jogged by the shore the figure stayed ahead of me. I decided it must be another person out for exercise also.

I continued my pace and the daylight started breaking. I looked out just beyond the small waves and noticed a pair of dolphins regularly breaking above the water. We seemed to almost match the same pace. Yet as time went on I eased ahead of them.

In past visits to the beach when I headed north along the surf my goal would be to make it to the pier without stopping. Sometimes it took me two or three outings before I would make it that far. Today making it to the pier was almost effortless. At least there was no pain nor question of making it that far.

As I neared the pier I finally overtook the person who had been well ahead of me when I started. It turned out to be a woman who was at least ten to fifteen years older than me. She had been walking the whole time.

When I reversed directions at the pier, the sun had just broken through the gray clouds on the horizon. A lone angler at the end of the pier held out his fishing pole. Big seagulls were dropping down out of the sky and plopping in the water. Beyond the pier on the horizon the huge orange orb of the sun was glowing. It was a picture perfect postcard sight.

I stood by the edge of the water to drink in the view. The orange shafts of sunlight sailed across the vast expanse of sea and ended up right at my feet. I continued my return walk (the jogging was over) and noticed the dolphins had caught up with me as we now headed in different directions. Another forty feet out was another pair of dolphins plying the morning route in parallel to them.

No matter how far I moved down the beach the sunbeams followed a laser-like path right to my feet. As the sun rose higher, the beams look yellowish. Still later they splashed wider and became silvery white. Though the sun was shining for the whole world, and anyone anywhere along the surf would have the same perspective that the sunbeams were at their feet, it still seemed like the sun was following just me. I thought of a line from a song, I think by Bill Gaither, “His love reached down all the way to where I was.”

I have found God’s grace is like that. God creates a hunger and desire for me to return home to Him. He seeks me out wherever I am. It does not matter what I have done, or what I have not done. He shines His love upon me as if I was the only person that matters.

I arrived back at the condo about 100 minutes after I had left with a fresh perspective for the day.

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