love

Second thoughts on water…

~ Growth N Grace ~ 2 Comments

I still love water. I’ve seen and submerged in a lot of it during our stay in Cairns, and it’s utterly beautiful. But I’ve been consumed with thinking ‘how can something so beautiful and so natural cause such pain and chaos?’

Crock warning signs everywhere, vinegar on every beach corner and stinger-suits galore…as beautiful as this Australian ocean is, it’s absolutely a poisonous devil’s playground.

Then there was Will. And now there’s Travis. And I’m just agonizing over the dichotomies of life right now….

  • Water is beautiful and calming and so peaceful, but those tides can churn, waters can become rough and perilous, and yesterday’s glassy blanket of blue can close chapters long before the story should be over….before it barely even began.
  • Wine can fill my soul, but it can shred my body when my overindulgence wins out.
  • Trust is good and right. It’s the easy path for me, choosing to give the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes that can bite you in the ass too. Sometimes it bites you in the ass that now has no shorts, cause your favorite pair’s been swiped by a fellow backpacker. A petty example, but an example nonetheless.
  • Love is beautiful too. I believe in it. I see it around me, I feel it. But it broke me. It broke me so hard, that I’m not quite sure that I’ll ever be able to buff out as radiant a shine as there once was.
  • How can growth and grace, two words that feel like they should sing in constant harmony, require and cause so much chaos? How can the balance feel so hard at times? How can two beautiful things work against each other, but need each other at the same time?

These dichotomies consume me…Is it a ‘too much of a good thing isn’t always a good thing’ scenario? Is it God’s way of telling us to settle, trust Him, wait for Him to figuratively turn water into wine in our lives and always, always love him? I don’t know what it is. I don’t think anyone does. It’s impossible to work out how such good things can cause such bad things…how bad things happen to such good people.

I can’t quiet this internal dialogue. Not today and probably not tomorrow either, so I suppose in the meantime I’ll just send so much love, all the love I can muster, to those good people who loved Will and Travis. And trust that when we sip on a glass of wine with our toes dangling off the dock in the cool water, we’ll feel the love coming right back to us.

A Fijian Love Affair

~ Growth N Grace ~ 7 Comments

I often dream about whales and dolphins. Maybe my subconscious reminiscing on the days when my family used to drive along the Hawaiian coastlines and I’d ride with my 7 year old face pressed up against the glass, eyes glued to the water just watching for the inevitable water spout to blow. I think maybe there begins my love affair with water, as Mr. Paisley would surmise.

I love water. I love being near the water watching the waves. I love being on the water in a kayak or paddle board or sail boat or speed boat. I love being in the water jumping waves or hand-standing into the tide. It just brings such peace and a simple love for God’s bluest creation. My heart smiles when I sit at my favorite Kirkland park watching the sun set over Lake Washington. It smiles when I drive over those Clearwater bridges, beach-day bound. And now I know for certain, it smiles when I sway in a hammock, with a book in tow basking in the sparkly Fijian sun looking out over the crystal clear blue water. It just does a heart good.

Fiji was what I hoped it would be. It was relaxing for my body, calming for my soul and refreshing for my water-lust-ways.

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We didn’t do a whole lot at the Beach House, but what we did we did well. A jaunt down to Sigatoka, lots of reading, lots of hammocking and kayaking and makeshift snorkeling.

IMG_4081We ate beautiful local fruits and toast and jam at breakfast time, homemade banana scones at tea time and the freshest fish burgers at dinner time, encored with a bowl full of kava for ‘dessert’—it’s as disgusting as my fellow backpackers warned—but an obligatory chug, nonetheless.

IMG_4104We made jewelry from coconuts that daring local hands pushed out of the palm trees from 50 feet up. We watched the tides roll in and out, made new friends from countries near and far and sipped bottled water out of—wait for it—Fiji Water bottles.

It rained most days, but I found those quiet moments of pitter patter on the woven palm roofs soothing in a way I’d never let rain sooth. It is water afterall; just the type of water that typically annoys me. But when you’re sprawled out on a hand carved bench under an open-air bungalo-type structure with nowhere to be, no concern for how you look or ruining your shoes, the water falling from the sky actually feels as wonderful as the bucketed-land-water I adore.

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Yep. Fiji water bottles, a good steady afternoon rain and some bobbing in the teal blue waves really helped wash away departure week. Here’s to hoping for more affairs with the wet stuff that does a mending heart good.

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