Sand Script

For the love of Christ controls us-- 2 Cor 5:14A

Ah, our yearly pilgrimage to Gulf Shores, AL for the Spring Break Baseball Tournament. And what a nice way to keep an eye on your teenage boy! My wife ‘ran into’ my son walking down the beach with his girlfriend, and in his eyes, the only thing worse would have been to run into me with my shirt off. Don't worry, ain't gonna happen-- I will leave that stunt up to some pasty guy from Minnesota with black socks and velcro strapped Pumas.

I love the beach, and wrote a blog about the beauty of what we call the Emerald Coast back in Sept. entitled Water Colors (click here and scroll down to Sept 5, 2006). People are also of great interest to me at the beach, as humans seem to drift away into a Jimmy Buffet mentality and become so approachable and friendly.

I spent a couple of mornings with some ‘snow birds’, those smart Yankees who follow the same migratory pattern annually and leave Canada, Michigan, Wisconsin, and all of those other Great Lakes states and spend their winter months and their retirement dollars in Alabama. We southerners have come a long way since the Civil War; we love Yankees…with money. Seriously, I found these folks to be intriguing and all you have to do is ask a leading question and they are more than happy to fill in the blanks. People love to talk about their lives and especially their families. And you can learn a lot about life, if you take the time to listen.

I met a mother and her two boys in the elevator one afternoon, and guessed they were from up north before they opened their mouths.
“How did ya know?” one of the boys asked.
“You guys have on wet swim suits; no respectable southerners are going in the Gulf this time of year!” I replied.
The mom laughed and said they were from St. Louis. The boys assured me that the water wasn’t that cold, at least after 20 minutes. But it’s those 20 minutes…..whew! In August, the Gulf is like a nice warm bath. In March, we leave it to the Yankees.

My mornings were consumed with long walks along the beach listening to songs on my IPOD like “Drift Away” by Dobie Gray , “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers, and “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding. It was pure heaven watching the sunrise create those golden crinkles on the turquoise water.

One morning, I came upon some writing in the sand that caused me to stop. For some reason, I snapped a picture of what I saw carved in the sand: “Hunter Wilson Alabama 2007”. I pondered for a moment, and decided that Hunter was probably a lot like the pre teen boys from St. Louis I had met in the elevator: A young kid so impressed with his first trip to the beach that he just had to leave his mark.

It made me think. We all want to count, we all want to leave our mark, it seems to be part of our nature as humans. A kid scratching his name in the sand. A snow bird telling me about her grand kids. I have said many times “I don’t care what others think of me” but it is simply not true. We do care, and Jesus knew it. He said that the second commandment is to love your neighbor as YOURSELF. We are supposed to love ourselves? Wait...didn't He tell us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him?

For me, this quest for self worth, this leaving one’s mark, is answered through the preceding commandment, the greatest of all, when Jesus told the scribe: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. (Mk 12:30) It is in the security that, as I turn my heart towards Him, I count for something because HE makes it so. His follow up to denying yourself was that if you lose your life in Him, you will find it. For in the finding, you will leave your mark, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Phil 2:13).

I am still meditating on the scripture in Acts I used in writing about my friend Steve:

In Him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17:28

He makes us count for something.

Hunter Wilson, here’s believing that, as you wrote your name in the wet sand in Gulf Shores Alabama, God will write His Word in your heart, and in His Book of Life.

Mark
Prov 17:23