When I was in Jacksonville in June for Operation Surprise G-mama, my aunt June Gail (now otherwise known as the Fred who took me to Europe in July) took me to buy new shoes. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have concerned myself with buying new shoes. I have a lot of shoes in my closet and most of them are in decent shape. But on this day, I actually did need new shoes: I needed a new pair of waterproof shoes because I had worn out every other pair that I had. My pink Keens have a noticeably broken side, my brown Crocs with the cute Jibbetz have no traction, my orange and yellow Croc flip flops have no traction, and my waterproof Birkenstocks are no longer wearable because the glue holding the shoe together has come lose. So, alas, I really did need a new pair of waterproof shoes.
The store that we went to didn’t have the shoes that JG took me specifically to buy and it didn’t have a pair of Keens like the pink ones that I have worn to the point of fashionable death, but it did have Crocs. So I bought a pair of orange Crocs, and I have since worn those Crocs to Europe and back.
As I write this note today, I am looking at the Atlantic Ocean from the East Coast of America. I am with a group of kids and adults from a church that I’ve been working with for one week every summer for the past decade. For nine years, we met at a lovely retreat center in the mountains of North Carolina, yet this year we have come together at the coast. This week always serves as a marker for me—a definite point of keeping time—a clear unit of tracing where life has taken me in the year since the group and I last met.
To say that a lot has happened since last year’s camp is an understatement. I completed another year of school, taught the best of my life, was named Teacher of the Year, but then had to say goodbye to most of my friends as they packed up their rooms at JES and went somewhere else. I learned new and meaningful music with the choir and praise team, planned moving worship services, began dreaming for the future of Antioch, but then had to say goodbye to my pastor as he packed up his family to move back to Texas. I surprised my grandmother for her birthday, went to a beautiful lake in NC for family vacation, helped run another successful Nana camp, and then had the opportunity to travel across the Atlantic Ocean and see it from the other side.
For someone who loves words, the words are not coming to express everything that I am feeling today.
As I walked on the beach a bit earlier, looking for sea glass, I caught myself rehearsing what I should write today. I came up with a plethora of different beginnings —some poignant, some cute—and topics—the importance of community for shared memory, a story shared in worship last night—but I couldn’t land on one, definite thing. Then I looked at my feet—the same feet that had worn those orange Crocs that I could see shining ahead in the sand—and I heard a very clear voice say, “Stop trying to figure everything out, Deanna. Just be present right here, right now, in this moment, on the beach. Feel the sand on your feet. Listen to the waves crash. Hear the children’s laughter. Watch the selfless dedication of chaperones. Life is happening right here. Not just in the awe-inspiring memories of your summer or in the anxiety-inspiring thoughts of the new year. Your note will come. Sharing your stories will come. Future days will come. But right now, just be here with me.”
When I got my orange Crocs at the beginning of the summer, I had no idea where they would take me. I had a vague notion of what it would mean to travel the world and I knew the itineraries of family vacation, the Scandinavian Adventure, and this camp, but I had no idea that at the end of it all, the foundation of my world would have expanded and that my life would be changed in ways I cannot yet express. All I knew was that I needed new waterproof shoes.
Maybe all we need to know is how to put one foot in front of the other—barefoot, dry-shoed, or bright-orange-waterproof shoed—and stay present in the moment, trusting that God will guide us to the next moment, on this side of the Atlantic or beyond.
I am overwhelmed
With gratitude. My humble
Heart sings thanks and praise.
Amen.
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