When Peace Floods Your Soul

Toes digging through grains of sand.
Ears tuned to the lullaby rhythms of the East Coast waves.
Thunder rumbles in the distance threatening to release its pent up aggression...
And somehow I find complete peace in the moment.

These two play with their dog.

A man and woman sit reading in quiet companionship.

A 4 year old laughter & curiosity pull her mother along as they walk the beach.

Wave artists face the potential storm with dogged determination.

My love flies his kite in spite of the winds fickle temperament.

Rain drops fall on me now,
steadier by the moment,
blurring ink on the pages of my old leather-bound journal.

Yet somehow I feel calm, still in the recesses of my soul.

The rain comes harder now, so I tuck fragile belongings and myself under a twin fitted sheet grabbed last minute seemingly at random. Now the action makes me smile with contentment, as I curl up with book-for-review in hand, listening to the rain beat down like the sound of distant drumbeats echoing across the African plains.

Buried under my self-made mountain, the heaven-sent moisture begins to cling, and slowly, I become one with my safe haven. Cocooned from the world around me and cut off from sight of any impending change to my environment, I lose myself in the world of story & make believe on the mountains of Alaska over 150 years ago.

Thirty minutes pass, and the sky begins to clear. I emerge from my private little world, and the changes in the landscape around me hit my senses immediately. The once busy beach, is now barren with all but die-hard enthusiasts like us, determined to hold out against mother nature's downpour. Other shifts are subtle in nature. New discoveries unearthed by the movement of the sands and winds.

I have spent years in a love affair with the mountains.
Their majesty.
Their strength.
Their fortitude.
Their certitude.
Their dependability.

But the older I get, I find peace flooding my soul when I slow my being to the pace of the wind and waves at the ocean's shores. Oxygen fills my lungs as I close my eyes, breathe deep, soak in the rays on my face, and let the wind flow sweetly through my hair.

I am undone in all the right ways. My soul finds oneness with His creation. I sense Him expanding my artist's lung to breath deep of the art He longs for me to see, to experience, and to create.

To live purposefully
Intentionally.

I stop.
I reevaluate.
I listen.
I breathe deeper still.

Floating in a place of stillness that is foreign
to a normally-anxious soul such as mine,
the enticement of this peace draws me in close.

I long to find the magical GPS of grace to help me navigate permanently on this road of inner rest, even in the days of chaos and uneasy acceptance.

But my longing to know, to understand, to figure it all out, quiets, as I simply close my eyes again, lift my chin to the sky, and inhale deeply, feeling chest and abdomen rise and fall as His peace gently washes over my soul.

There is nothing new about my story.
Nothing magical or earth shattering or especially amazing.

Except maybe there is.

When peace can flood an anxious soul, stilling the activity, accessing grace by the gallon-ful, there is a mystery there too beautiful for words.

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