Real Rest: A Sunday Story

This weekend we went away.  We suddenly live in a place that allows us to drive five hours and get to white sand beaches, so that is what we did.

Rest is a funny thing.  Sometimes you need it so badly, but you don't know how to get it, even when your feet are being lapped by waves and it's just you, your husband, a few locals on a beach cleanup, and the native birds.  Even then.

So I found myself praying, "Lord, please give me your rest.  Me trying to make it for myself isn't working."

This morning, Chris and I drove from our motel in West Pensacola, Florida, down to Perdido Key, Florida, then across a bridge into Orange Beach, Alabama, and on into Gulf Shores.  After driving past a bunch of hotels, condos, surf shops, and restaurants, we settled on a public beach spot and had our own church service on the beach.

Chris looked up the words to "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing", which was one of our wedding hymns, on his iPhone, and we sang that out to the God who made all the waves we were looking at.

Then I pulled out my iPhone and read the verse of the day from my YouVersion Bible app:

"...being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ..."  -Philippians 1:6

Chris and I both have youth group experience, so we both know how to ask "youth leader questions".  So I gave us a question to discuss: "What good work do you see God doing in you right now?"

It was a revealing sort of question, so I figured it would be the most kind and courteous thing to answer first.  So I was very honest with myself and Chris about how I had seen God humbling me lately, breaking pride in me that needs to be broken.  That's always fun to share.  But you know, at the same time, sharing it was like a relief, like the doorway into understanding some of the recent experiences of my life.

Chris honestly shared his answer, and then we listened to a sermon from our pastor in Tulsa.  If you want to give a listen, here it is.  We played the sermon on my iPhone, and because the sound of the waves was so loud, we huddled together on my rain jacket on the sand, with the iPhone on the ground between us, placed inside our red Target frisbee, which I hoped would work like a speaker.

We listened over the wave sounds to Ricky, talking about how we followers of Jesus are already free, we are already loved, but we don't always believe it.  It was food for the soul.

Then we finished our little couple's-church-service-on-the-beach with a song I liked a lot at our last church called "Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder".  We shared Chris's iPhone for the lyrics.

Then we got up and played catch with our red Target frisbee and then stood in the surf and collected some shells, and then took jumping pictures of me, like this one here to the left (in, which, let's be honest, thanks to the magic of Photoshop, I edited out some of the feisty coastal frizzies in my hair).

And you know what?  That time together at the beach this morning was good.  Like deep good.  Like, "God called the dry ground 'land,' and the gathered waters he called 'seas.'  And God saw that it was good."  (Genesis 1:10).  That kind of good.

And through his word (the Bible), and through praise, and through being his kids chatting together about what he's doing, and through our Tulsa pastor's words, and through just being married together, hanging out on the beach, God answered my prayer.

God called Chris and Elizabeth "loved" and he gathered them together at the sea (well, gulf).  And God saw that it was good.





And God gave Elizabeth rest.