I hope you all had splendid holidays with your families celebrating the birth of Christ and the redemption of our world :) I'm now sitting in the college computer lab writing this blog. I got back from North Carolina with my family on Saturday, but before I returned to Amish Country I spent about a day with my friend Steph in Virginia Beach. Steph is studying at Regent University. It's pretty awesome, because for Christmas I got a Regent University shirt! It's coolness, though I think Steph has ulterior motives as well behind it ;). So it's like January, but while I was visiting Steph I really wanted, and I mean REALLY WANTED to go to the beach!
So being the awesome friend she is, Steph took me to beach. It was cold and windy, but it was beautiful. We got there right about when the sun was about to set. The beach was long and quiet. There were only a few people around and I couldn't help, but just want to stand there gazing at the huge ocean. For a few moments it was... heavenly. Breathing in the sea air, the sound of the waves quietly crashing, as the sun slowly crept down below the horizon. Of course, me being myself totally ruined the moment of awe and reverence when I saw a little Sandpiper bird. Those things are like the cutest things ever. When they run it's like "didididi".... So I started chasing the Sandpiper, just to watch him walk, run, then fly away. Yet, being on that open empty beach was so thrilling and freeing... not to mention freezing. So we continued to walk down the beach towards the distance pier which had usurped by all types of seagulls. Then after visiting a seaside souvenir shop we walked back along the dark beach. The sky was dark and all you could see in the distance was the lights of boats over the ocean. It was... indescribable. We spent a few moments guessing star constellations, for I haven't seen stars that bright in a long time.
Later that night, long after we'd been home and were going to bed Steph and I got to talking. We talked about how the ocean is a great place to reflect and marvel at what an awesome God we have. Then I said something that even surprised me. I said to Steph, "I guess, the ocean is only thing we have closest enough to help us realize how big our God really is." Deep for me, right? I know. Yet I couldn't help, but feel that way standing beside the water. How small we are, how big God is, and how greatly my sins have been forgiven. It was extremely humbling and awe-inspiring.
Amos 9:6 (ESV)
"Who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth; who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the surface of the earth— the Lord is his name."