Low Tide

My dad is a beachcomber, meaning he prefers to wake up before sunrise on vacation to find whole shells and sand dollars. He has paid a heavy price in morning spindrift to amass his stellar, hand-picked collection and I’m happy he’s happy—but in my world there isn’t a shell worth getting out of bed for.

Still, truth is truth, and the truth is low tide is when treasures are more easily found.

I’m so thankful this truth is also figurative; that I don’t have to actually wake up early to find treasures. I shall remember when life feels low, or when its fullness has receded or been taken away, it is prime shell-hunting season.

It felt low when I drove Archer through the school drop-off loop and watched his beloved, gloved teacher toss his personal school supplies through the window while he extended a wrapped, giant homemade cookie we baked just for her. As we pulled away, she said she loved him, he said he loved her, and I started to tear up.

It felt low when I was braking in the car parade to honk and cheer for a neighbor who just finished her last round of chemo, and when I saw one of the young women from my church group bagging groceries in a mask and we couldn’t talk in line.

Low isn’t depressed or devastated. It’s just…different. It’s low because the love and emotions are the same, but the normal actions for showing that love are missing.

I’ve learned that the ache of wanting to be in someone’s face—or at their dinner table, or with my arms around them, or walking by their side—is probably just how Heavenly Father feels but He, too, is limited by boundaries created to allow us to grow from faith into sure knowledge.

When you can’t be physically next to someone and you still love them, you get creative. You send letters or texts. You savor the phone call. You hide Easter eggs in yards and stick notes under windshield wipers. You sidewalk chalk, sew from scraps, and bake favorite foods. You pray for them.

God isn’t physically here, but He’s close, and He loves me. What has He left in my path to assure me of his affection? Daffodils, for starters, and the symmetry of hyacinths. Moody clouds. That meteor shower Tuesday night. Music. Paved bike trails. My daughter making my bed. Scripture written thousands of years ago but precisely what I needed today. Snail mail. That singular glacial lily on my glacially slow hike with the boys. The Ogdens giving us 20 bags of their ex-waterfall mulch—just what our yard lacked but without the trip to Home Depot. I could go on forever about my assemblage of marine tenderness.

In the low tide of shutdown I’m simply learning to love like God does—from a distance but with gestures of absolute sincerity. Limitation doesn’t prevent personalization and closure can’t stop closeness. This realization has been the most cherished acquisition yet; my perfect, pink-bellied conch shell.

Photo of a card I made with one of the mini sand dollars Dad gave me. It's about the size of a plain M&M.