Emma Wood Beach

We stumbled down the dirt embankment, then across the railroad tracks, looking left and right. I stopped to take a picture as she climbed ahead of me, up through prickly, scrub bushes. When I reached the opposite ridge she was already down on the road looking up, waiting for me to scramble over after her. I came up a different path, so she didn’t see me watching her, or the ocean and clouds wild behind her. From the road we jumped down again, onto boulders, then rocks, which dwindled into pebbles, and into smooth sand. 

After jumping down the boulders, I looked down to check my footing and saw a grey rock the shape of a near perfect heart. It was another much appreciated sign that we are loved. I believe that when Christ takes out a person’s stony heart and replaces it with a heart of flesh, he litters them along beaches and hiking trails and re-purposes them as love notes to weary travelers.

We perched our flip flops on a rock and walked along in the water. For a moment, we were both home.

Oh and as a side bonus, God sent some random photography student wandering the beach to come and document the whole thing. He was nice and offered to email me the pictures afterward. I hope he gets good grades on this one.  Good things happen to us everywhere we go.