He took me to the ocean last night.

Not because he wanted to.

But because I wanted to.

He is giving and sure and gracious like that.

He knows my need and gives up his time and makes things happen even when I do not give him thanks for it all.

I know Someone else like that.

I told my love I needed to smell the salt and breathe in the dripping air and watch the water retreat,

Because that is what I wanted to do:::

Retreat like that. To leave for a bit and roll back in with the moon and tide, washed and refreshed and ready to take the world on again.

I told him that I needed to hold his hand and stammer through the tidal mud and lift  the ‘weed and find some treasure. Something pretty and rounded on the edges.

Something with a story to tell.

Something once-birthed jagged and cracked and broken- all- up.

Something tossed and turned and flailing on the waves.

Something trusting the ride, because it knows the end.

Something sanded and worn-down and full of grit-scoured wrinkling.

Something like that.

Something that ends up re-fined and re-curved and re-shaped and re-polished.

Lost and found again.

Washed free from the bottom and catapulted high to shine in the sun.

A glistening gem buried beneath the ‘weeds and rocks and water.

Something-fractured-separated… turned something-brand-new.

He bought me a milkshake with a cherry on top and we walked along the pebbled shore.

He laughed and looked his for-me-only grin while he found mussels and pieces of glass and metal and rest.

He joked and talked and I listened and breathed in the salt air and him and the warmth of his hand.

And found rest right there.

With him.

With Him.

I felt pretty and found and picked up and brushed off anew again.

Right there in my muck on a rocky beach near the sea.

Breathing in salt.

So I can be.

Oh, I pray to be:

Salt.

“You are the salt of the earth… In the same way, let your light shine before others…” Matthew 5:16