Beach Angel

Sunday morning, on a rare morning off from church, I went to the beach to take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the ocean.

As I crossed the sand dunes and stepped foot onto the beach, I said aloud, “I would like to find a piece of sea glass. I am speaking these words into creation.”

I walked for awhile—very slowly—listening to the waves crash and the seagulls sing—looking carefully for that piece of class.

I marveled at how beautiful the shells were—how different they were from the shells in Jacksonville—how each shell was unique—how some shells were quite ordinary on their tops but how they displayed intricate, extra-ordinary designs on their backs.

I sang the lyrics to a love song over and over in my head. “You matter to me,” I sang. And I looked out over the water and directed all of that love to the Creator of it all.

I thought of the previous Sunday’s worship service—of the children adorning the altar with flowers and birds and of their innocent voices reading:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet our heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you?

“Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ Or ‘What shall we drink?’
Or ‘What shall we wear?’ For your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.”

And while pondering this scripture and stopping to look at a particularly lovely shell and being truly wrapped up in the worship of it all, the strangest thing happened:

Without missing a stride, a young man walking with his girlfriend approached where I was standing from the opposite direction, bent down and picked something up, handed it to me, said, “This is in your jurisdiction,” and kept right on walking.

I stood with my mouth open in awe, staring at the piece of sea glass in my hand, completely at a loss for words, thinking only one thought: “Did that really just happen?”

Yes, friends. Yes it did. A beach angel in an orange jacket placed into my hands the very thing that I had desired.

After picking up my jaw up off the sand, I had the frame of mind to take a picture of my beach angel. Part of me thought he might be gone when I turned around, but he was still there, walking with his girlfriend, completely oblivious to what he had just done.

Then I continued my walk, amazed and overwhelmed with gratitude—embracing those words of scripture—singing that love song—marveling at nature’s beauty—directing my love and thanksgiving to the Creator of it all.