Let me tell you a story...

I rose early that day, eager to sink my toes in sand and water because I knew I had only a few more days to do so. The sun was low on the horizon, but already its warmth was beaming down and kissing the sand. I walked slowly, sifting with my toes through the piles of shells deposited on the beach the night before. I was looking for sand dollars, a hot commodity with my little friends still sleeping back at the condo. It may seem a silly prayer, but I asked God to help me find a sand dollar to take back to them. I walked and sifted for close to an hour, not finding what I was looking for. Suddenly, I felt a whisper tickle my soul. Look closer.

I stopped, kneeling down and using my hands to sift more thoroughly through the sand. When I looked more closely, I saw that there were hundreds of baby sand dollars dotting the sand, mixed in with broken shells and ocean debris. I had been looking for a big sand dollar, not pausing to even notice the piles under my toes that held a bounty of what I had prayed for. I smiled and started collecting some to take back to my little friends, knowing that this treasure would make them squeal with delight. My heart was delighted too, and I felt the nudge of a reminder: God delights in providing for me. The provision just might not come in the form I was looking for or expecting.

I am two months away from embarking on what feels like the scariest and most exciting journey of my life. Most days it doesn't feel real. Most days, I waver between worry over details, sadness about this change that will take me away from all I know and love, and a sense of wonder that God would allow me to take part in bringing restoration to this world. 

This morning I listened to these words and felt a resonance in my heart: "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:13-14). A flood of memories from the last five years rushed over me, and I felt a swelling in my heart and tears welling in my eyes.

A decade ago, I had plans. I had dreams and ideas about what the future would hold and where I would go. None of my plans have been brought to fulfillment. None of them. If I have learned anything in my life, it is that life is a mist. For me, that makes this journey all the more meaningful. Life is a mist, and yet God has allowed me to experience valleys where divine faithfulness has tended to my heart. God has allowed me to experience the intimacy of deep, abiding community. God has allowed me to experience the joy of living into who I was made to be. I am so humbled.

I have shared about an unlikely friendship that God wove together last year. I met a young mom through my work with Safe Families and we have spent many, many hours together in the last year. Grocery shopping, haircut getting, dinner eating, and errand running became an avenue for friendship. Several weeks ago, we sat at a table licking ice cream when she said, "So, are you moving?" She had heard through the grapevine before I had a chance to tell her myself, and my heart did that familiar shudder/twinge as I answered affirmatively and watched her face fall. I was struck by how far we have come, that both our hearts would ache with the separation of a cross-country move. I will miss her, and I tear up to think that I could have missed this. In all my well-laid plans, I never could have dreamed I would have such a friendship. I am so humbled. 

This week, I sold my house and most of my possessions. Every time I felt the urge to cling to something, I was reminded...it's just a thing. Life is a mist, and all these things will fade away. I pray I never lose that perspective. Even as I have opened my hands and released all I have built up around me, God has provided in the most generous, miraculous ways. And I think about those baby sand dollars, how God delights to give us what we do not even know we need. 

This next season, I want to be about stopping and sifting through the sand. I want to recognize on a daily basis that life is a mist, and yet God allows us to take part in experiencing and initiating the restoration of all things. Had I stubbornly continued to traipse all over the beach in pursuit of a big sand dollar, I probably would have missed the baby sand dollars that brought big smiles and childlike joy to a little girl later that morning. Had Jesus not interrupted my carefully laid plans a decade ago, slowly ruining me for the ordinary, I probably would not be embarking on this journey of a lifetime. I pray I never stop following Jesus into the unknown. Because even in the midst of the ocean debris that can be this life, a journey following Jesus is like mining for baby sand dollars. And I never want to stop looking for baby sand dollars.