The other day, I overheard a woman say, “When I lived by the ocean, I never bit my nails.”It made me smile, not just because I’ll be going on vacation to the ocean not so long from now, but because I completely understand. The ocean calms me: the sound, the sea. If there is any place where worry and problems melt away and I feel closest to God, it’s with my feet in the sand. As I was driving home, I realized that when I pray, I feel that same relaxation, that same calming wave cover me, whispering, “It’s all right. It’s all right.”Yesterday was a hard day. I think I aged a decade. First, at the crack of dawn, my mom’s cat was hit by a car. And then, we got a call that my husband’s mom was in an ambulance, on her way to the hospital. As I went to bed, anxious to put the day behind me, I found sleep by imagining the beautiful horizon of the sea and how it disappears into eternity, taking with it my worries and fears.
Sabra is a writer and editor at OurPrayer.org. Her blog is featured with permission of . Copyright 2011 by Guideposts, Carmel, New York 10512. All rights reserved.
Danse Macabre
It gets better.Stay in between my synapsestap it out in Morse codeif need be.It gets better.Take me outside to lookat the birds flying in unisontaste the salty airby the boundless oceanfeel the sand between clenched toes.It gets better.Take my mind off what I knowis too big for methis thing I always dance aroundand never mention.That's why there is faith.It's the bridge betweenthe impossible and the infinite.Please get me and mine safely across.
"WHAT CALMS YOU?"
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