Washed Away

I bet we have all felt a sense of it. We are in touch with it when people fail us. And even the best of people will fail us. We are left feeling washed up and faded. Exhausted from the waves of grief slamming up against us. Sometimes we feel we are unable to take the force any longer and we succumb to it. It might become a part of us, leaving us to view life from its perspective, to make decisions based on filling that empty tank. Emotional abandonment leaves a scar, an impression of sorts.

I was feeling very abandoned the day I took this photograph. The people I wanted to make it all better were never going to fill that role in my life. One was dead and the other in the grips of addiction. There was no more striving for what could be.

At first glance, this image represented solitary footprints in the sand. A person walking alone. And, yes, I know the poem, but this was something different.

I needed to open up my hurting heart and let it wash over me.

They were gone.

As painful as it was, this truth wasn't going to kill me and I could continue on, alone in my walk.

As I stood in the naked vulnerability of aloneness, I watched the waves ebb and flow in front of me. Fear and insecurity faded from the background as I let Acceptance wash over me. Forgiveness & Hope stood with me that morning on the empty beach. I let go of some very heavy expectations I had placed on others.

On my way back down the beach, the impressions of the earlier footsteps had faded and looked more like hearts.

Imperfect hearts etched by the waves of truth and acceptance.

Often I've been sent out to find the heart of others. It's my ministry, so to speak. I found the heart of God that morning. His, in mine, something to certainly be treasured up and pondered upon.

I'm sure I'll feel that kind of alone again... emotional abandonment is no small thing to overcome. This moment in time will be a profound memory to think back on; a foundation to build upon.