Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Beach (07/04/05)
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TITLE: The Beach (i) | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jan Thackston
07/06/05 -
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“Mary Ellen!” Oh man…she never used both names unless I was in big trouble. “Where is your top?” I heard my mother’s excited voice as she came rushing toward me with a t-shirt flapping wildly in her hand. Looking down, I, too, wondered what had happened to my swimsuit top. I was a 10-year-old girl who very much resembled a 12-year-old boy. No matter, Mom pulled that shirt down over my wet hair and all was well with the universe again as I frolicked about in the warm, salty surf.
Those were wonderful days. My mom would take my two sisters and me to the beach for a couple of weeks in the summer. We ate, we swam and played in the sand, and we slept. It was as close to paradise as my young mind could imagine. During those idyllic days at the shore, I would think that this must be what heaven is like. My mom was always around to hug, to scold, to fix lunch, to tell my sisters what to do…how could it be any better?
Mom was a widow and worked full time for a dentist. The eldest daughter was charged with watching our younger sister and me while mom worked. I didn’t like the arrangement any better than she did. Even now, some 40 years later, I vividly remember saying over and over “you’re not my mother. I don’t have to obey you!” Poor Sis.
Yes, more than 40 years have come and gone and I continue to enjoy time spent at the beach. There isn’t much of it these days since I’ve moved to the central part of the state, but scarcity makes seashore visits even more precious. Now I look at the sand as it squishes in-between my toes and think of how God promised Abraham in Gen 22:17, “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which [is] upon the sea shore; ….” [KJV] I’m overwhelmed by the sheer inability to compute that number.
The waves roar inland one after another yet they only come so far up the sand. How far do they go out? I can only imagine as I gaze over the water to the horizon’s edge. We are taught that the moon controls the tides and God hung the moon so He is ultimately in charge of all that water. It gives me peace to consider that all of nature was created by Him and “God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good”. Gen 1:31 [KJV] Very good, indeed; for me, for you, for us all to enjoy as we thank Him for providing us with the Beach.
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