Love the Hand of God

Just recently, my husband took me on a little overnight getaway down the coast of Georgia. The goal of our journey was to watch and photograph sunrise from Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island. The trip quickly became a comedy of errors… and a great lesson in choosing whether the errors make or break you.

Not long after first getting on the interstate, we ran smack into the middle of a terrible traffic jam. Add an extra hour in the car to the itinerary! We took advantage of the time and started listening to a new book together.

After finally making it to our hotel and getting checked in, we were grateful to learn of the extra COVID cleaning efforts, evident by the dampness of a recently cleaned carpet, something always fun to discover with socks on.

We ran into some navigational issues seeking out a dinner spot on St. Simons Island, but ended up at a lovely restaurant right on the edge of the ocean! We had excellent food while listening to the waves. Heavenly!

Once we got back to the hotel, we spent 30 minutes sorting out issues logging into Netflix so we could continue watching our current show of choice. That was quite the fiasco, but what came next really shook things up.

There was some sort of accident in the hotel gym that triggered the fire alarm. It started going off at around 11pm, continuing to go on and off until around 3am. Well, you can imagine the challenge that presented for two people looking at a 5am wake-up!

Once again, the comedy of errors threw us a curve ball, but we got out of bed, made our coffee, and headed to the beach on Jekyll Island. The beach full of fallen, weathered trees was spectacular in the light of the rising sun.

It’s further evidence that God can take anything, even the broken and decaying trees of a small beach, and make it amazing. I haven’t discussed this much with anyone, but in many ways I can see my own life in the landscape of this beach.

I’ve got my own fallen trees, but my precious husband and his children have some fallen trees off their own. As I think I mentioned before, my husband lost his first wife to illness, and the experience was the hardest he’s ever had to endure.

There have been times that it’s been difficult to feel ok because I’ve been blessed with this beautiful life, yet I know I only have this blessing because of what my husband and his children lost.

He’s expressed gratitude because I don’t feel a need to have her excluded from our life. He knows he can speak of her freely and that I am not threatened by those words. How could I be? He’s a wonderful man who loved someone for more than thirty years. If I asked him to put all that away, I’d be asking him to set aside part of himself.

When I married, I gained a husband, yes. But I also gained incredible step-children and three grandchildren. Talk about a complete flip of my life script! It’s far more than I ever dreamed possible for this little life of mine.

Still, as we sat this last weekend, on the couch with one of the grandkids, watching Disney movies and eating banana pudding, I felt nothing but love for the precious little boy snuggled beside me. I also understood the honor I have been given to continue loving and caring for this family in the stead of one who is loving them from a different place now.

Just as it was on the beach that morning, the landscape of life’s fallen trees take on the light of Christ, especially if we’re willing to get out of our comfort zone and see more of the light, less of the trees.