Sandra Heska King

daring to open doors

In the Yearning and the Wrestling

By

We camped a lot when our children were young. We had a little 13-foot fiberglass Scamp (purchased when there was just us two) and then a pop-up camper. We wrestled the kids out to the Hart-Montague Rail Trail, plying them with doughnuts halfway into the ride. Abby much preferred to tear around the campground and still sports a humongous knee scar from a bad tumble.

No matter how hard our children wrestle with us, they just want to fall into our arms when they hurt.

We also climbed the dunes up and then down to the water. And climbed and climbed and the water was always just beyond the next rise. And we’d roll in the sand on the way down.

I thought about that this weekend as I put one foot in front of the other, a toe length at a time, squeaking sand beneath. Up a very low incline from water, up the dune to the path. And my husband stopped and turned around because he could hear me gasping for air.

I climbed higher and easier and faster fifteen years ago.

And I wanted to be young again. To run up and throw myself down, arms and legs twirling, hair flopping through the sand as I rolled free.

I’d been aching, yearning all summer for the sand and the water. And I felt a catch in my breath and in my heart this weekend when I caught sight of the beach after a long hike through the back dunes. The light at the end of the dappled path dazzled me. The lake was alive. Beckoning me. I quickened my pace and shed my trappings and hurled myself into its arms.

I wrestled with the waves, leaping them, battling them, gulping great gulps. And when I tired of that, I threw myself backward into them and went limp. And instead of swallowing me, they carried me. Up and down and up again. And I could feel the fatigue and stress and pain and fear ebb out and away toward the horizon. And I watched white clouds feather across the blue coverlet and felt the heat beat on my face.

And then I treaded water, and I noted green meeting green–trees, dune grass, water–across the sparkling sand expanse. And I thought about things like shifting sand and grains of sand and stones and brokenness and battering of water against hardness that yields a softened beauty.

And I felt young again. And I didn’t want to leave. And I stayed until long after my hands wrinkled and bumps formed on my arms. And then I threw myself into the sand and buried my toes deep into its coolness.

Yet I couldn’t shake a faint sense of foreboding that something hard waited around the next bend. That I would wrestle again.

And I realized that strength comes in the climb and in the wrestling.

And that no matter how much I wrestle with my Daddy, I can ultimately collapse into His arms, knowing He will lift me above the struggle and the pain.

And that He beckons me to do just that.

Like a child.

**********

I see a Michigan mitten tilted ever so slightly to the right in the tree canopy. Dennis doesn’t see it at all. Am I crazy?

Linking today with Bridget Chumbley’s One Word Blog Carnival on Children and with three from here and there.

Comments

  1. Anne Lang Bundy says

    Oh Snady! What a picture you’ve just given me!

    All these years I thought I understood what it was to wrestle with the Lord—and much wrestling there has been.

    And now … now, I see it in an entirely different way. Wrestling with Abba, until I fall into His arms first weary, then laughing.

  4. April says

    That was a great picture of what it is like to wrestle with God. Every one of us struggles with that and it was wonderful to see it written in such a “visual” way. Thank you for sharing

    • Sandra says

      I love that, too, and that his arms are still open even after we’ve done battle with Him.

    • Sandra says

      Hi, Melissa. You not only write beautiful posts, you share some beautiful comments, too. Thanks.

  12. Sandra says

    Thank you, Allison. And did you see? Frederick Buechner’s quote has captured both of us.

  13. allison says

    yes frederick buechner’s quote captured both of us…
    BUT I only first discovered it this morning from YOU
    but I have been yearnig for those words…
    to express my heart’s desire, my life’s longing,
    for months now…
    thank you for providing them there for me…
    they link back to you

  15. deidra says

    Oh, you made it! I was right there with you…walking the same shores I visited just three short weeks ago. I remember noticing the tightness in my neck and shoulders disappear and the furrow in my brow smoothing out. I remembered it all again as I read your words here. Such good writing! So very good!

    I see the mitten. You’re not crazy. Or maybe we both are?

    • Sandra says

      I honestly thought of you and wondered if I would see you walking the path. 🙂

      I’ll be crazy with you any day.

    • Sandra says

      It’s not hard when you can’t breathe well enough to go a whole foot at a time. 🙂 How can walking in such soft beautiful sand be so hard?

  18. Louise says

    Hello Sandra — I finally got caught up with my week and have a chance to get caught up with my visiting here in cyberland!

    I’m so glad I dropped by to read your wonderful words. I too wanted to be in that water with you.

    Lovely, lovely post.

    • Sandra says

      Thank you, Louise! So nice to see you. I’ve fallen behind in my reading, too. It’s hard to keep up with all the good stuff.

      P.S. Congratulations on your blog award!

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