Pregled posta

On one of my husband's trips with business in Oregon, we trekked out to Seaside in order to see one the many beautiful ocean beaches there. Since we moved away from the Willamette Valley in Oregon, we never realized how much we really enjoyed always having the option of going to the beach whenever we liked. We really get to missing it now that we don't have that option. Thus, whenever we can make it out there during a summer or late spring month, we make a point to pay the old friend a visit.

When we arrived at our destination, we decided to go for a nice long barefoot walk up the beach. We walked and walked for about a mile or two while playing chase with the waves and writing little love notes to each other and the Lord along the way with our trusty little weather worn beach sticks, accompanied by tiny lover squabbles, when suddenly we started seeing many broken sand dollars. We were amazed at the abundance of them but remembered that a severe and devastating storm had hit the Oregon coast in that area just prior to our making a trip there. It was so bad, in fact, that it actually uprooted many of the huge trees, exposing the roots since the trees had been ripped up and toppled on their sides, along the coastline that we witnessed on our way there and back that day. That part of the country is not used to heavy winds, so it doesn't fare well when it happens. We'd never seen anything like this upheaval of trees and sand dollars in our lives on any Oregon coastal line or beach.

We started taking lots of pictures of the broken sand dollars when I stumbled across one like this one in the picture above. I figured it was just another broken sand dollar but with the broken side down, so I took the advantage of photographing it at many different angles since it looked like a whole sand dollar. Then when I finished, I picked it up; and low and behold it was a whole sand dollar--the very first I had ever found in my entire life. It seemed the only whole one among the broken many.

It was not alone, however, since we then ran into a whole slew of whole sand dollars, not a few more yards away. There had to have been more than 50 whole sand dollars in that small area alone, not to mention all of the others up the beach. From our viewpoint, we could see in the distance that there were hundreds more up the beach. We just stood there for some time gawking at this mother load.

After this initial buzz wore off, we realized we could only carry I think about 25 of them, however, since we did not come prepared to carry off such a haul. Furthermore, we were getting tired and hungry and grumpy, so we also knew we wouldn't be able to come back for any of the others. As a result, I carried about 12, and my husband carried about 13; then, we tootled off back toward our car after photographing them galore.

When we came back in view of the people at the main beach, they stood agape at us, making hilarious comments as we walked by. One such comment was something like, "Hey, did you leave some for anyone else?" or "Wow, what a great find; you could make money from that!" Gauging from the reaction of the onlookers, I'm surprised there wasn't a stampede in the general direction we came from for the rest of the sand dollars because of our find.

Upon reflection, I am reminded it is the storms of life--hardship, illness, sickness, disease, accidents, injury, persecution, lack, famine, war, and natural disaster (like Hurricane Ike and the tornadoes that hit the Midwest recently)--that bring in for the Lord the mother load of souls, stranded on the beaches of life. Though He is not the one who necessarily sends the storms, He does respond to those cries of anguish and humility directed at Him for mercy. He gathers up the first who seems to be sticking out of the wet sand like a diamond and then continues to look farther up the beaches for more, knowing good and well that they are there because of the first marker but still having to press forward to find them all. At the peculiar sight of His bringing in His haul, He is sometimes mocked or laughed at in envy or jealousy or admired and gawked at in amazement and wonder, depending on the bystander's vantage point and disposition in life.

It is in these moments that we are reminded to pray to Christ Jesus, the Lord of the Harvest, to send workers into the harvest field as He tells us in Luke 10:2-3:

"The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go!" (NIV)

When the harvest marker is found, letting on that more are to come, this passage comes to life:

The kingdom of heaven is like hidden treasure in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of gre