Briny Beach, Florida, February, 2018

There is a ball out there, riding the waves.

At first, I was expecting it to make forward progress; after all, the tide was coming in. But the longer I watched, I noticed that the ball’s progress was neither forward nor backwards, but just riding through the waves.

As the waves buffeted it about, sometimes the ball slipped over the peak, sometimes the crest swept and broke over the ball. But after every wave, the ball held its position, always floating; never being dragged under, neither retreating to the shore it came from, nor fighting its way past the incoming tide to the relative calm beyond. And I thought what a great metaphor that was for grief. We can’t quite reach our old life, the life we had on the shore we left, because it is not the same, and we’re not sure of ourselves there. The waves of grief batter us; they pull us down. Sometimes we float through them, other times we fight our way through. Sometimes we are hit by two, three, four waves all at once, coming from different directions. Our grief pulls us down; we come back to the surface. We never know how long we are going to float before the next wave comes. We don’t know if it will be strong and push us down, or so mild that we can gently ride it out.

But we do know that eventually, the seas calm. Eventually, that ball will make it back to shore. It may bear marks of its journey – scratched by shells, perhaps, or worn out by the constant buffering of the waves. Or maybe there won’t be any visible difference for our eyes to see.

What if the ball had the capacity to experience the journey, and explain it to us? I imagine it may have found peace in the experience, to have learned that no matter how many waves passed over it, it always managed to hold its position. Someday, ultimately, the tide will carry the ball to shore. Perhaps it will land on the same shore it left, and its next life will begin in the place it left behind. Perhaps it will land on a new shore, far away, to a different life, to experiences not imagined before. But the memory of the waves remains.

As we heal in our grief, we experience seas both rough and calm. As time passes, our seas are become calmer, but there are still days we get buffeted about, just like that ball in the ocean.

When we return to shore, when we reach the new life God has in mind for us, we don’t forget what came before; we don’t forget our loves and our griefs. We learn to live in the calm between the waves, and trust in the grace of God.