New Every Morning

The sun’s gauzy warmth poured into our stateroom and before I even opened my eyes. I heard the tradewinds filtering birdsong into my still-hazy morning dreams. With the sweet sounds of the Caribbean beckoning I stepped onto the balcony to behold Grand Cayman.

Today was already the rarest of days: one with no agenda. I’d spent the first days of this cruise unwinding the drama of my life. This morning, I awoke to no alarm, to sunlight pouring through an open, unlocked sliding door. How often does that happen?

Some people claim that vacations are for “checking out,” but I seem to do the opposite. I tune in, becoming blissfully aware of my environment: the lush greenery and pastel buildings, the chatter of the nearby beachgoers, the feathery breeze. I don’t typically notice such details, but my breath caught in my chest as we stepped onto this island of cottony clouds and impossibly turquoise seas.

My friends back home wouldn’t label me the beach type, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off the white sand. Before long I found myself resting in a hammock in the shade of a palm tree on Seven Mile Beach. Book in hand I closed my eyes, half-praying...and half trying to turn my mind away from the previous few months. For some reason, my brain won’t quit returning to the idea that I don’t measure up, that I don’t deserve God’s love. That maybe my messes are too much for God to clean up, that they’ve driven me so far from him I’m in danger of losing the way back to His love. Sometimes, it’s so hard to feel it.

I felt a tug toward the water, away from my thoughts. Why dwell in the past...and why pass up a chance to walk along one of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean? I rolled up my pant legs and waded in.

The ocean surged and splashed around my ankles as a school of fish darted around my feet. The waves broke gently onto the shoreline, and I watched them roll in and out, onto the beach and back to the sea, over and over and over again.

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It never stops. The tides change. Sometimes the waves wash further in, or further out, but they never quit. Unbidden, Psalm 100:5 came to mind, a verse I’d memorized years ago. “For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”

That word: forever. How do I wrap my mind around something like that? How do I comprehend a love that is constant, never-ending, and unaffected by anything I could ever do? I couldn’t make sense of it, so I just got lost in the repetition. Wave after small wave rippled onto the beach, like clockwork. It never stopped.

My spirit soared as I made the connection: God’s love is as relentless as the ocean. Just as the beach can never lose sight of the sea, His love pushes toward me and washes over me like waves on the sand. It arrives in unexpected ways, regardless of how I feel: a song lyric, a quiet word from a friend, a Sunday morning message.

And just like the beach doesn’t have to understand the tides, I don’t have to understand God’s love and faithfulness. I only have to receive it, letting God’s love do its work of transformation. When God’s love washes over me it brings hope, peace, and blessing, then carries away my anxiety and doubt, grain by grain. He’s reshaping me.

We return in a few days, and everyone will ask about the great teaching and music aboard this Christian cruise. I’ll tell them that—for me—my most important lesson occurred off the ship, in Grand Cayman. In that moment, my feet in the Caribbean, my heart gripped by the Creator’s everlasting love, I found Him again. I felt His compassion. I heard His voice, like the gentle whisper of the tide, unyielding and unstoppable. I knew that nothing could keep His love from shaping me into who He wanted me to be.

Like a wave on the ocean, He makes all things new.