All will wash away
June 17, 2009
Using the setting sun as my compass, I skirt the incoming tide and pause every few steps to snatch a stray shell before the retreating waves can steal it away. My toes dig into the wet sand as the pipers and gulls flutter around me, searching for one last snack before finally calling their day done.
This will be my last evening at the beach. Sometime early Thursday morning we will brush the sand from our clothes, pack our suitcases, and head west for home. (A secret, though, between you and me: I’m not shaking my sand off. I want to walk around with it on me a little while longer.) So tonight I am enjoying one last walk to take it all in.
And I’m not the only one. A few yards in front of me is a young surfer just out of the water and taking the long way home.
He places his board down just beyond the surf and bends as if tying an imaginary shoe. He slowly traces something into the wet sand with a finger and, still stooping, considers the marks. A slow and solemn nod displays his approval, then he rises and walks on.
So do I, pausing after a few steps to pick up a clam shell for my daughter. I look back up to see the surfer now heading for dry sand and the boardwalk, where a battered red bicycle waits to take him home. Curious, I walk ahead to the spot where he had bent down and find these four words:
ALL WILL WASH AWAY.
I look over and see him climb onto the bike and tuck his surfboard under his right arm. There he sits, staring out at the beach.
And here I stand, staring down at these profound words.
You don’t generally expect such deep thinking from hip surfer dudes, just as you don’t generally expect it from redneck hicks. In that, we are kindred spirits. And in more, too.
Because these past few days have brought much the same sentiment from me. I’ve been coming here since I was a child, and that sense of permanence has always been a source of comfort. The ocean never changes. It is immense and beautiful and old and will always be such. Yet while it is fixed, I am not. I may visit this same place every summer, but I always bring along a different me.
The me this year is much different than the person who last gazed upon these waters, though exactly how different I cannot say. Rather than time dulling the edges of our lives, I think it sharpens them. It makes clearer the things that matter and the things that do not. Perhaps it is because my visit this year falls just a few weeks shy of my birthday that my thoughts have been centered more upon the future than the present. Thoughts that are best summed in the four words below me.
ALL WILL WASH AWAY.
There are times when life becomes simply unbearable for me, when the tides crash in much more than ease out and the treasures life gives me are snatched away and demanded back. And I’m sure I’m not alone. I have a feeling the young man on the red bike has recently suffered through something like that. I have a feeling you have suffered through that as well. Because we all have things in our lives that scare us and leave us to quake at the possibility that we are to merely borrow them for a time instead of holding them forever.
We all fear that all we love will be consumed by the enormity of this world and erased forever.
Yet still we arrive daily in our lives to write upon the shore, to cast our hearts and our hopes into the ebb and flow of our days in faith that we just may happen upon something that neither time nor tides can erase.
That is our quest in life. To find the eternal. To find that which cannot be washed away.
Comments
33 Responses to “All will wash away”
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I’m a writer whose first novel, Snow Day, will be published by FaithWords in 2010.
But don’t let that fool you. I’m just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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All flesh is grass,
And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field…
The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.
~ Isaiah 40:6-8
You haven't been at the beach long enough. I'm sorry you have to go.
I think you should fill a couple pails with some beach sand so that you can put your toes in the sand back home on your porch. Maybe stick a few blobs of seaweed and some shells for the full effect.
because I am not sure if that sand is giving you some bonus inspiration or what, but WOW! You've been digging deep (no pun intended) in the Word on this vacation and it's awesome! But then again…..that Blue Ridge Mountain air does it for you too!
Have a safe trip home…..
Billy LOVE LOVE LOVE the new header!
Awesome picture for all of us to see the tides of life come and go!
Yes, all will be washed away. I praise God for the seasons in our lives. I have gone through some seasons I want to last forever and yet understand they can only last so long. I have been through others that I'm praying will pass soon and knowing I need to sit through them until all that I need to learn is fully grasped.
Oh what I learn each day my friend is changing me just as much as the tide beating against the shore over and over again. I see Him molding you too Billy! What a beautiful sunset and heart He is creating in you!
Wishing you a joyful last day or two at the beach! May it last in your heart all year long until we all meet there again!
Blessings,
Jill
Oh Billy, I LOVE the new picture in the header! Awesome! And I have a question — how do you see your computer outside?!?!? I haven't figured that one out yet! Help!
If you're coming up I40, beep when you pass exit 285!
Blessings to you! I hope to go to the beach in July!
Beth
Beautiful. No better place for some inspiration huh, Billy?
So beautiful my friend. I love your new header picture.
Billy,
Perhaps this is what Jesus wrote in the dust with his finger. It would certainly have fit the occasion and fit the message for our lives.
Larry E.
Trying to grasp the enormity of those words is like trying to put the contents of the ocean in beach bucket.
I have so enjoyed "my" trip to the beach with your thoughtful and expressive words, Billy. I hate to see you leave as well. It's been a great trip and just another testimony to how huge God is.
Wow. You get some very profound thoughts at the beach. The last thoughts I remember having at the beach are "Mmmmm…. salty….". I love how you can find the profound where ever you go.
Your new header is awesome…what a great picture!
I will remember this post AND the words the young man traced into the sand, "All will wash away."
It's a shame you have to go back home so soon…we would always stay a week, but the time always seemed to fly by!
BTW…I love Helen's comment! "Mmmmm…salty…" I'm gonna laugh about that the rest of the morning! LOL
Have a safe trip home, Billy.
Short trip. But leaves you feeling full of the Spirit, yes?
Thanks for taking us along on your trip. You could have kept these things to yourself, but chose to share. Thank you.
The only thing more amazing than your writing is the fact that your book remains unpublished.
I think you have many books still left to be written. That was an amazing post, my friend.
In those kinds of profound moments I often wonder…did that surfer dude have wings tucked under there somewhere? When we seek Him; He is found to us.
The best is yet to come…keep on writing!
So beautiful, Billy. We will leave our beach retreat tomorrow morning. It's always hard to leave. Holding on to these beach thoughts…time for walking at sunrise, holding hands, kissing sun-burned shoulders. sigh. holding on to this state of mind gets a little easier with the years, as you so eloquently point out, but still…a holiday by the sea cures many an ill.
Love the hat, BTW.
Traveling mercies.
LOVE your new header – and this post. What incredible reflections, and so true.
Beautiful.
Have a safe trip home….
Sorry that your time at the beach is coming to an end. But this year will fly by and then you'll be back. Have a safe trip home. We'll miss Beach Blogger Billy.
Nice, Billy. All will wash away. Love that.
Have safe travels home.
Billy,
What a truly blessed and inspired post from God this one was. It reminds us that like our sin, once we commit our lives to God, He washes all those things away that aren't beneficial to His kingdom. We are forgiven! And like the sand on the beach, we get a completely fresh start on our lives for that day.
Love and Hugs ~ Kat
Billy, there's something beautiful about your writing that draws the reader toward you but then points their vision elsewhere. Great job. Keep it up!
Grace,
Madison Richards
Wow. Great stuff.
I am beach-bound tomorrow. I've noticed that my brain gets a certain kind of clarity there that seems not to exist back "in the real world."
I promise you, I would read your memoirs if they were written on a stack of napkins. You, sir, are gifted.
"What I learned today" is that I can learn a lot from a redneck poet who walks through life with his eyes and heart open.
Beautiful thoughts, beautifully expressed.
Jeanne
Important lessons. Although I do believe it's easier to remember these things at the beach.
Nice picture in your header. So calming, so relaxing…"All will wash away"…Sad but true. Nothing in this world lasts but thanks be to God for His promise of eternity. God bless.
"That which cannot be washed away"
The great love of our God is the only thing that comes to my mind! Unfailing, unconditional, unmoving, uneraseable love! Perfect Love that will cast out all fear!
You are right Billy, we are all looking for the eternal that can not be washed away, found only in the arms of our wonderful, loving God!
Have a safe trip home,
Christy
"There are times when life becomes simply unbearable for me, when the tides crash in much more than ease out and the treasures life gives me are snatched away and demanded back. And I’m sure I’m not alone."
No, you definitely are not alone. Thanks for this post and for sharing your thoughts so beautifully. Love this post.
Billy,
Why'd ya have to go being all deep while I'm eating a yogurt and attempting to ignore my daughter's cries begging me to share with her.
It was Yoplait yogurt too. The good stuff. Red Raspberry.
I was being all yogurt-y and you're being all deep.
It ain't right!
Great post, a.p.u
Ahhh, but our hope is fixed and not on the ebbs and flows of this world for it is not this world for which we were designed.
I know how it feels to leave the ocean. It is one of my favorite places. My family and I are returning soon to Charleston with our youth group. I can not wait. God bless you my friend.
Bren
Thank you. Again. I needed the perspective. How does God tell you what to write–that very thing we, I, need to hear for that day? Mixes in with what I've read in my quiet time, circumstances, my questions.
So…thank you, Billy. Safe travels for you and your precious family!
Every nice word everyone else said goes for me! I enjoyed my vicarious trip. All my sins have been washed away by the ocean of His Love!! Thank you so much for your inspirational writings. I've used a quote from you on my facebook status – with credit, of course. Love the new header!
So global warming isn't the only cause of the rising ocean. Perhaps God is merely crying more and more over man's sin. Beautiful post–thank you for sharing your vacation with us.