This morning, I dropped Beverly off at her intensive and found a quiet beach.

 
Don’t worry… I didn’t fall in again.

 
I did spend a longer time than I planned to just watching the waves and listening to the silence that comes when the world around me stops. Nothing started playing in my mind. Not a to do list, or a voicemail, or even a song… it was just the wind and the waves stilling the internal noise.

 
From there, I went to see friends. Many who have become the family of my heart are on this side of the country and I was so thankful to get to see several at once before sneaking into an actual church service at New Season Church of Ventura… walking in just in time to catch Pastor Rafael preach.

 
Oof. What a word. God has certainly used pastor’s proclamations from pulpits to drive home his points lately. Pastor Tammy has left me rattling things around the last few weeks and today the call to extravagant love carried forward to my time here and Raf’s message this morning.

 
No matter how afraid I am, how unqualified I feel, or what might go wrong… I must choose to obey.

 
I left church and headed to Serra Cross Park. The waves that were big enough to pull me down yesterday looked much smaller from here… Time and perspective make a big difference. Funny how that works, huh?

Being removed enough to see the big picture makes it harder to shut out the extra noise, though... closer to the waves may be riskier, but being right there fosters a stillness that isn’t easily replicated from a distance. There’s a middle to be found, I think. Balance…

The Midwest has always been home, but the ocean beckons... the far edges of this country pull me toward the water to wrestle with the waves and find all that is worth fighting for.

I went to a very different kind of church today... Listening to the music of creation, joining with the family of God in fellowship, stretching to take in the challenge of the proclaimed Word...

 
This is what I believe heaven will be like. Creation. Connection. Communion.