Waves and Whorls

Why create when it all gets swept away?

Hey friend,

The wind whipped around me while the breeze bristled my legs. Sand pelted my eyes. My husband, our two young boys, and I sought shelter near the groyne. The waves cast their anger on the rocks, so there was a modicum of peace.

Thanks to the Sunday Afternoon Beach Rhythm, our family drove 40 minutes to the beach every week to walk or swim in summer regardless of the weather. We had not expected such wild wind, but since we had come all this way, I was determined to make the most of it. I planted myself in the water near the rocks. My boys started building a sandcastle. 

Suds swirled around my shins and I watched the waves hurl themselves at the sand. Foam wafted through the air, landing in erratic dabs on the seashore. The wind breathed whorls as unique as a fingerprint onto each wave, which were swept away in an instant. I wondered why there was no word for this whorl in the English language. There was a time when the whorls would have caused grey to descend. 

Photo by Nate Dumlao on Unsplash.

I remembered St Paul’s Cathedral in London. I was 21 years old, on a miserable backpacking trip, staying with my friend in Clapham, London. We had just backpacked through Scandinavia: Helsinki, Oslo, and Stockholm. It should have been a fun trip, but conflict seethed under the surface, and I’d already paid a lot of money to be there. I escaped the house for the day to go sightseeing by myself. 

The sky reflected my mood, grey and threatening a storm. I paid my entry fees for St Paul’s Cathedral and sauntered around, having nothing else to do that day. A sign explained how significant people of each age had paid to have their names on parts of the cathedral. Grey descended further when I noticed that there had once been names chiselled into the stone underneath my feet, but they had been worn away with centuries of foot traffic. Only the most important people managed to get their names on the floor and yet, even they could not endure the weight of time. 

I climbed 528 stairs to the Golden Gallery for views of London from the dome. My mood became steadily fouler during the ascent. I had no idea what I was doing with my life and everything I tried seemed to be making things worse. I had spent the last five years exploring the Bible and Christianity, but it caused so much conflict with the people closest to me, I wondered if it was even worth it. 

At church, I had never felt so out of place in all my life. I had never stood in a room full of people singing before. I didn’t know any of the words. I didn’t understand all the new rules and etiquette. And reading a bunch of dead white guys before I even understood how to read my Bible had me convinced that I might be saved by grace but I had to stay saved by my good works.  

I felt like I was giving up everything I liked and was getting nothing in return. I had decided to take a year off from this God thing and tried to fill the hole in my heart myself. I ran away and tried to forget. I pursued academic success through an Honours degree. I dated who I thought I should be dating. I did everything I thought would make me happy. Except, instead of satisfying my thirst for joy as I hoped, it flowed through my fingers like water. I didn’t understand. I’d done what my culture had told me to do all my life: “Hustle! Achieve! You do you!”

Backpacking was as miserable as I anticipated. I went to a traditional Finnish sauna, swam in a hole in the ice. Explored Christmas night markets. Drank eggnog. Meandered the cobbled streets and red, orange and gold homes of the old city, Gamla Stan, in Stockholm. Danced the night away in a converted warehouse bar in Oslo. Nursed a hangover in a Finnish tractor-themed restaurant.

It all looked good on the surface. It looked great for social media. But the conflict seething under the surface exploded with the force of an underwater volcano, which culminated in the loss of a dear friend for reasons I still don’t understand.

Back at the top of the Golden Gallery stairs, I found hundreds of names graffitied on the stone. I couldn’t resist adding my name. I wanted so desperately for something to last, for my life to matter. I wanted to be a writer since I learned to read.

But I couldn’t write. The pressure to be good, for adulation, praise, and acclaim, for my name to last, crushed the words before they reached the page. In the middle of scrawling my name, the security guard caught me. I had to walk back down 528 steps all the way to the bottom, passing over the worn out names again. 

Photo by visualsoflukas on Unsplash

After I got home, grey descended again like a thick fog. Everything seemed pointless. Trying and traffic jams. The grey separated me from the things I loved. I watched them at a distance and felt nothing. I didn’t care about enrolling in the Masters of Clinical Psychology like I planned.

I took a job as a receptionist instead. I was convinced that if I knew God, if I was truly saved, I would not want to sin. I believed the presence of sin in my heart meant I was not saved. God knew I had tried to run away, so there was no way he would take me back. 

Until one day, I was sitting in the sunshine on the grass at the South Perth foreshore, waiting for a friend who was running late. I’m a woman who loves cross-references and maps, dead white guys, and thick tomes, but I felt like I heard the Lord say, “It was never about you or what you do. It is only my mercy that matters. Come home.” 

I wept and went home. Colour returned to my life. That single moment of surrender has shaped the last thirteen years of my life. I let go of control and let God be God. He is in control and he is good, so he has the right to tell me how to live my life. Go to church. Okay. Date a Christian. Okay. Give away your money. Okay. Sabbath. Okay. Open your house up to others. Okay. Read your Bible. Okay. Every day. Okay. Read it with your friends. Okay. Run a Bible study. Okay. Run a playgroup. Okay.

It is remarkable how one moment of my life, when it really could have gone either way, turned into a tidal wave of a thousand other choices. He did not ask me to do these things to earn my salvation, but because his ways are higher than my ways. He knows best what I need. I am shocked at the sheer joy and delight I experienced once I surrendered the right to run my own life. 

And so, we return to the steel-skied, windy day at the beach. I was 34 years old, surrounded by my husband, two sons, and pregnant with my third son. I realised that before the Lord, I am the wave. He imprinted a unique whorl on my life. My life is a breath before him (Job 7:7), I can’t say anything new (Ecclesiastes 1:9), but I can add my voice to the chorus of his praise. I can be one more wave crashing on the shore to his glory. I am content to be a wave in God’s kingdom.

I thought about C.H. Spurgeon, who commented that all David had when he wrote the Psalms was God’s word and His creation. That was all David needed. I obsess over all the things I think I need in order to write, but God has already given me everything. He created me in His image, with unique whorl-imprinted fingers. He gave me a love of words, and a heart redeemed by his mercy, that is slowly changing by his grace. He gave me his creation and his word. I can plumb the depths of these as far as my whorl-imprinted wave takes me, singing in his chorus, and gratefully spend myself on the shore. 

Tell me in the comments (or hit reply to this email):

1. Where have you unexpectedly found joy?

2. What gets in the way of your creativity?

3. What has God been teaching you about himself lately?

4. When you look back at the last ten years, is there anything that surprises you about how God has changed you?

Related: Anaemia Illuminates, Proteas and Pointlessness, and The Broccoli Evangelist

Thanks for reading, friends.

Ps. My Year in Books is like Christmas for book nerds.