As a child I grew up vacationing along the Boston coast. At night we would stand on our balcony and spy the lights of freighters coming in, and listen to the crash of salty water breaking on the crags below. I haven’t been back since early childhood, but I can still almost taste the intoxication of the seaweed saltwater mists on my lips and feel the cool damp slapping my face. Daylight breaking would bring walks down to the beach- this required a descent down a set of windworn wooden steps; stubborn, tangled nettle and beach grass peeking through each crevice, seemingly oblivious to the elements.
This also came with the anticipation and fascination of the tides— depending on the time of day, the ocean water would magically be at a different level on the beach in relation to those wooden steps. My parents would tell me that the tide was “in” or “out” and my four year old mind grappled with this concept. When the sea’s tide was “out,” where did all of the water go? And how did it decide to come back? Or know that it was time? My dad said something about the moon, and gravity, but from what I could see the moon wasn’t anywhere around and this didn’t seem to make any sense at all.
I was sure of what I could see-
Only of what I could see.
When the tide was out, that meant the water was gone. There was plenty of beach to play on, and neat little tidal pools to splash in. The ocean floor lay exposed to explore; there were rocks and seashells to study and collect. But there were also countless shellfish and vegetative sealife that appeared absolutely stranded— choking without the water and seemingly done for, really— how could all of this ocean life survive?
But I was always reassured that the tide would come in again.
And it always did.
The water always came back.
And I’ve come to understand that the rise and fall of the sea is a beautiful complexity owing to the combined gravitational forces of sun, moon, and earth’s continual rotation. And if the tide is out somewhere, that means it’s in somewhere else.
It’s never completely “out.”
The ocean is always full- it just doesn’t always look that way from the shore on which we’re standing.
And isn’t that life?
Sometimes from where we’re standing, it doesn’t seem as if the tide will ever come in. We’re just staring out over a valley of dry bones wondering how and when God will ever breathe life into them again.
But we have to trust in the inherent goodness of God.
That the ocean is always full.
The tide will come in again.
The tide always comes in again.
“I would have despaired had I not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord, In the land of the living. Wait for and confidently expect the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for and confidently expect the Lord.”
Psalm 27:13-14 (Amp)