Ormond Beach, FL | January 2020 | Contax 645 , Fujifilm Pro 400h 120
2020 began with so many hopes held lightly. Can we even remember those days? I took a weekend away with a sweet friend to dream and plan and breathe by the sea. But all I could think about was the baby growing inside me. When we first arrived I thought to myself, “this is your first trip to the sea little one.” I thought there would be many. The trip involved little actual actionable planning on my end (I blame the pregnancy brain). But the life giving conversation flowed freely as it usually does in the presence of said friend. We sat and talked about her own unexpected journey to parenthood, her two precious children carried in the womb of other women, the four she carried herself for a time that were called home to Jesus too early it seemed. The fragility of it all weighed upon me. No matter how many specialists we see, diet changes we make, yoga poses we do it’s Jesus that makes that call. Like the mystery of the vast ocean before us and inside us, the push and pull of the tides, the treasures it gifts at its shores. We journey here and dip our toes in its cool embrace, this ever moving sliver of a foamy line in the sand. We stare hazy eyed at something beyond what’s before us and breathe it in. I’d go here again and again and again to stand in awe in the familiar unknown just to know how small I am, how big He is and how the amount of trips we’ll take to the shore—for ourselves or the babies we’ll carry there—are numbered and known only by our Savior Jesus. What a comforting reminder these days and everyday that we don’t have to know the answers or the reason or the plan. We don’t have to ache to know what is held in the grasp of tomorrow when we know Jesus today.
xoxo, Caroline