Walking along the beach

Road trip!  This is a good plan, right?  A handful of my close friends decided to take a little road trip to Myrtle Beach for a long weekend.  Let's face the realities, this isn't what we were hoping to be doing in February this year.  We were hoping that I wouldn't be able to go because I would have a baby.  But since Enoch died, it seemed like the right thing to do.  We can't escape grief, but we can at least change scenery.   A free condo, let's go.

Unfortunately at 3:00 am the first night, I woke up very ill.  Note to self, when you're eating something and think "I don't think this is right.  Maybe I should stop eating it," listen!  Needless to say, I was up vominting most of the night and the next day.  My friends were kind and cared for me well, but I tried to stay away from them, as I wasn't sure whether it was the food or the flu.

Day two I woke up feeling much better.  I started the day the way I anticipated starting day one.  I drank coffee, journaled, and read.  But it didn't take long before I needed out of there.  I had been in that condo for so many hours straight.  I had to get out!

Despite it being 35 degrees and raining, I opted for a walk on the beach.  It was not surprising when nobody wanted to join me in those conditions.  But I had to go.  I had to get out energy.  I had to get out of that room.  I had to!

So I made it the 12 floors down and journeyed along the shore.  It was cold, the rain pelted my face, there were large unavoidable puddles, and the more I walked the more my glasses became hard to see out of.  In all honesty it was a pretty miserable morning for a walk.  As I walked the beach I was fairly discouraged: sad that Enoch had died, mad that this trip was supposed to be a break, and yet I had missed a third of it to illness.  It was a frustrating moment in a hard season.

As I continued on, I realized the parallel of this grief season with this walk along the beach.  It's cold, it's lonely, and it's hard to see or know what's next.  What I do know is to just keep walking. One step at a time.  One breath at a time. One minute at a time.  I can't see where I'm going exactly.  I can't see what the new normal of life is going to look like.  It feels sad and cold and miserable at times, but I just have to keep walking and trusting God in it.

When I got back from my walk, unknown to me one of my friends took this picture from the balcony.  It demonstrated perfectly what I had felt walking along the beach.  Feeling small and a little lost in the dreariness, but knowing God is big and near and I to just keep taking one step at a time.