Seeing God in the Ordinary

Crunch, crunch, crunch. My sneakers sounded a cheerful rhythm as I walked west along the water’s edge on the ocean beach in the early evening. During the day it had been cool and rainy; the sun had finally come out after suppertime. It was still cool, yet the welcomed sun warmed my face.

I was following Jesus’ example of going to a quiet place to pray. I needed to regroup, refocus after a rather hectic day.

Seeing God in the Ordinary was a theme that kept popping up in sermons I was hearing, devotions I was reading. Where would I see Him at the beach? As I walked, I emptied my mind. I let God fill it as He wished.

The steady roar of the ocean and the crashing of the waves on the sandy beach were a constant companion as I walked. My sneakers left their marks on the hard sand, just out of reach of the breaking waves. The tide was low and still going out.

The area ahead of me shared stories of the past few hours in the footprints left behind. I found myself praying for the anonymous people who had left the impressions in the sand.

A pair of large sneaker prints with tiny zigzagging dog prints next to them had me smiling as I visualized a hyper little dog being walked on a leash by its patient master.

A family had been by. The footprints left by the kids showed a game of tag had been played with the water. I fondly remembered the games my own children had played with the ocean when they were younger.

Seagulls and plovers had left their footprints, too, as they fed from the gifts of the sea. Ahead of me, I watched as four plovers created fresh prints as they chased the receding waves, their beaks drilling into the sand. When the next wave came upon the shore, the birds scurried up, turned, and chased the wave back out to the ocean, drilling again.

Further up the beach was evidence of a sand castle, the moat dug with a couple of large clam shells left next to it. I looked closer and saw from the footprints that it was adults who created the castle. I smiled at their youthful joy on the ocean front.

A pile of rocks had been tossed ashore by the pattern of the current. The stones, in a variety of colors, were smooth from being tossed in the surf for so many years. 

Clam, oyster, and scallop shells, all colors, shapes, sizes, decorated the beach. Evidence left behind showed that the occupant of a clamshell had been dinner for a hungry seagull.

The tide started to turn and I headed back, retracing my steps, walking higher up the beach as the waves crashed further up the shore with the incoming tide. In only minutes, the prints I had left when traveling the opposite direction were gone, erased by the tide.

I had gratefully become aware of the Lord’s presence in many unexpected places at the beach: the life-giving ocean, the power of the tide, the wildlife, the warmth of the sun. The footprints told many stories of His love and grace toward us. God is in the Ordinary at the beach.

© Diane L. Neuls DeBlasio 2011