Count Your Blessings #18 – Waves

I have always been fascinated by going to the seaside and experiencing waves. I say experiencing because you don’t watch waves you experience them. Even if I am not in the sea every one of my senses is influenced by the constant pulse of the waves.

• My eyes are drawn into their rhythm
• My ears are soothed by their tempo
• I feel the moist air and spray
• I taste the salt
• I smell the rich sea aroma

There is no escaping the presence of the wave, but yet it doesn’t assault me. It doesn’t come up and howl it’s presence. Even in the biggest storm the wave may shout, but still it is somehow strangely natural and in keeping.

Wave are remarkable. Each wave is unique; each resounding whoosh is different to every one before it and every one after it; it’s height is different; where it breaks is different; each one draws back at a different pace. Every minute of every day they drum onto millions of miles of shore and yet they are matchless.

Each of us recognises the sound of a real wave. We were told as children that the sound in the shell was the sound of the wave; but none of us were really fooled. People have tried to synthesis the sound; but we all recognise these imitations. I have a CD of classical music with wave sounds in the background; but it’s not the same.

Some of my fondest and most vivid memories are animated by the presence of waves.

As a child walking along the front (as we call it) at Hornsea in a storm I decided that I wanted to get closer to the waves. So without my parents watching a snook down one of the paths leading to the sea from the sea wall. Closer and closer a crept towards the waves. And then, without warning, one of the waves decided to come and say hello. It engulfed me. I was drenched. My mum was shouting, screaming even. I was fine, I had lived my adventure and survived.

A few summers ago we went to Florida as a family; my brother and his family were living out there. They were living in Cocoa Beach and we would have happily spent every day in the waves. We bought body-boards and spent hours trying to master those waves. Some times those waves lifted us up and dumped us onto the beach; on other times they would break on top of us. You can’t master a wave, you can only allow it to come and treat you to a ride.

Last summer we went to Quiberon in Brittany while staying with Andrew and Katharine.  What a fabulous day. Fabulous waves that we spent all day enjoying. We were tossed and tumbled and lifted off our feet and we loved it.

Just this weekend we had a barbecue on the beach at North Berwick with friends. We listened to the waves as the sun set in magnificent colours or purple, red, orange and gold. But those waves weren’t intimidated by the grandness of it all, they just continued in their cadence and in so doing amplified the whole experience.

The waves also remind me of Jesus and His power over them, His ability to still them. We stand before the wave and dance to its tune; but not Jesus.

And to finish, a poem:

I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.

Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea —
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me.

Sara Teadale