Where Water and Sand Collide

I love the beach ~
  ~ the sun,
    ~ the sand,
      ~the water,
       ~ the sound of the waves rolling onto the shoreline.

I love to stand with my toes in the white froth of a wave, as it tosses wet sand around my feet and I sink as the wave pulls back in order to make room for the next one.
The waves and I play a little game.
If I stand in that same spot for long enough, my feet disappear into the sand. But I never do. I lift my feet up to place them on top as if to say to the wave, "You can't have me!" And each wave tries harder. My feet sink further and I pull them up out of the grip of the sand.
Over and over, we play. I chuckle and try to convince myself that I will succeed here and remain on top.
In this same sand, I like to kneel down and get wet. I take handfuls of the wet sand and let it drip off of my fingers so that it makes a swirling tower of soggy sand.
Dribble castles.
I made them as a child, and I still sometimes build them now. There is something soothing about dribble castles. As the sand slides off of my fingertips, it creates beautiful, little structures.
It is one of those things from childhood that induces warm feelings and good memories, however simple they seem.
I smile and sigh.
And because the material of which I build my dribble castles is the sand soaked by the latest wave, I must build near the edge of the water.
Where water and sand collide.
Here, the waves express their prowess yet again.
My dribble castles often meet with the wave that comes too close and the castles are reduced to nothing. They rejoin the earth and are no more. Only to be rebuilt. Again and again.

There is the persistence of the waves.
There is the perseverance of the builder.

Back and forth like a tug of war, they pull at each other. One destroys and buries. The other builds and restores. One refines. One grows.

The hand that reaches down and builds, does it with gentle movements for the creation is sometimes delicate and always special. But sometimes, that delicate creation is broken and refining takes place.
Sometimes a thing is destroyed and a new thing rises up. Sometimes a thing is buried in order to reveal something a little different.

When I walk away from the waves, the bottoms of my feet are scuffed up and rough like sandpaper. The beach water and sand have rubbed and scratched at the tough skin of my feet, only to reveal a softer layer of skin beneath. A natural exfoliating, if you will.

Evidence of the power of the waves, the beauty in the refining.

And there is this other beautiful thing ~ when I move away from the water's edge, the waves cannot reach me. There is a safe place; a place to sit and live out the lessons of the waves. I can wiggle my toes in the dry sand and turn up pebbles which have been rubbed and tossed by the sand and waves. These rocks are now smooth and pretty. Little gemstones.

There is a line drawn where what destroys cannot reach.

"I have placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, an eternal decree, so it cannot cross over it. Though the waves toss, yet they cannot prevail; though they roar, yet they cannot cross over it."
(Jeremiah 5:22, NASB)

There are times when we are rubbed and scuffed up a bit. There are times when we are beaten down and feel broken. And yet, renewing, rebuilding, refining occurs here. And then we can see the boundary placed around us where the waves cannot cross over.

Where love envelops; peace holds; joy invades.