Brine In A Bottle

Psalm 33:7 -- "He gathers the waters of the sea into jars, he puts the deep into storehouses."

With our toes buried in the sand and our eyes squinting against the winds that sandblasted our skin, we joined a small group collected on the beach to watch a lonely kayak-er brave the waves crashing on the sand spit a few hundred feet from the shoreline. [Our Dalton gang often heads to the beach when a hurricane blows through. It's the only time we on the East Coast really get any surf.]

I stood there with my mouth agape, watching the crazy person paddle out. A five footer came rolling in and quickly took the man under. On the beach, a few moments later, the yellow kayak washed in - empty of it's captain.

My husband and I tried to peek beyond the breakers, all of us worried that the worst had happened. We could not see the kayak-er. We pushed our way to the shore line to collect the yellow kayak, fearing that we'd need to report a missing "surfer" - but to our surprise, we finally spotted a little dot bobbing up and down in the waves. He rode the rip tide parallel to the shore and eventually made it back to the beach. As He approached I said to him,  "man, we thought you were a gonner."

He shook the water out of his hair and rubbed at his eyes with his hands and then said "yeah, me too."

After handing him the tether to his kayak, we all went on our merry separate ways. He to his home [I presume] and Steven and I up and down the beach in our obsessive hunt for shark's teeth. [There is no hunt as good as the one after a hurricane comes through and churns everything up so nicely].

Mikcler's Landing "Board" Walk

On this day, the waves came all the way up to the last few steps of the wooden walk that lead from the parking lot to the beach. It's not often that surf gets that high at Mickler's Landing in Ponte Vedra. [our beach]. And quite frankly, it's not often that this land-lubber fears the surf, but as Steven, my niece, her hubby, and I trudged up and down the high water mark - I began to feel the fight and fright of every single wave that crashed in around us. Even at the shore line the water was breaking well past my knees and the force of all that water slamming into us put the tired into my bones quicker than most hunts we take to find the teeth. Usually, we had the benefit of daylight to keep an eye out for large breakers that made it past the sand spit. But deciding to take full advantage of the storm, we kept looking - flashlights in hand - well after the sun slipped below the horizon.

Steven and Devan finally took to the safety of the dunes, while Denise and I stayed just next to them on the vanishing shore line. It was wonderful. It was frighting. It literally took our breath away on occasion.

Just as we were about to pack it in, a huge breaker crashed on top of us - soaking Steven and Devan to the waste - and nearly taking Denise and I out into the roiling ocean. Digging into the sand on the dunes and holding on to the guys for dear life - Denise and I popped out of the wave coughing and cold. It was definitely time to head home.

For Scale - Mickler's Landing Beach in the Calm

I'll never forget my underestimation of the power of those breaking waves. I'd never been bowled over during a hurricane before and I promise you it's an experience I will not repeat on purpose.

But I'll tell ya, my attention was certainly drawn to how very BIG is our God!

In Psalms, David tells us that God gathers the ocean up into jars. I stood there, drenched to the bone with no small amount of sand in my pants and in my pockets - rocked by the sheer strength of the Atlantic - and God is so much stronger. So much bigger. So very much more powerful than even the churning waves during a hurricane. And yet, He loves us - so very, very much.