Inevitable

The sky shines blue over a clear water sea, waves lapping at the shore, boats hovering off the sand. Coral is rough beneath my feet. The sun is still young in the sky, and casts long shadows down the beach to tease the water. The world is stirring, waiters setting and clearing tables, a family plays football down on the beach, gradually the holiday hermits emerge from their rooms to eat breakfast. In the east, there dawns a new adventure, a day just learning to walk, ideas growing and churning. And yet, God knows them all, intricately and wholly, how they begin and how they will end. Just like He sees me, and every thought that passes briefly through my mind, every pain that convulses through my body, every sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The Father feels it all.

9.02am

The world is alive! Excited shouts are heard up and down the beach. The waves continue as before, throwing starfish and jellyfish up onto the shore. Joyous chatter is exchanged across the breakfast table, some Filipino's clear out the diving boats, some splash around in the water. And me? I sit here, trying desperately to collect my thoughts; my feelings. I am dreadfully confused. Is this aching a distant heartbreak? A longing for those who are now out of reach? Or perhaps just a deepened confusion of things I'll never understand. Although there is one thing I do understand about this aching: it hurts.

I miss Dennis a lot. And not even just because I loved him like a grandfather. But because he represents my inability to hold on to my past. His death reminds me that my home is changing, and I have no control over those things. And no matter how much I try and cling onto those things, I can't. I do not know what 'home' will be like in a few months time, let alone a few years. My life is going in a direction I cannot control, a path I have no say over. And that scares me. What if I am not good enough? What if I am unable to do things properly? People want to know where my life is going, but I feel completely unprepared. I am inadequate, frightened and useless. How can I ever do what the Lord has in store for me?