by Merrie Root

Created on: May 08, 2009

I was 34 when I made my first trip ( that I could remember) to the ocean. My sister who my my best friend had died a year before after being hit by a drunk driver. I was devistated. My world as I knew it had ened and I was overcome with grief and doubt. I doubted my purpose in life. I doubted that the sun would ever shine again. Mostly, I doubted the existance of God. All my life I had been a believer, but the God I believed in would never allow such a senseless tradegy.

It was a 12 hour drive to my brother-in-law's home in Florida. I dreaded the ride, but I dreaded even more having to be around my husband's family. I had become a hermit and just wanted to be left alone. I didn't want to visit anyone, go anywhere or do anything. My husband (John) insisted that we make the trip. it'll make you feel better he said. Sure it will, just like the grief counslers, psychiatrists and hypnotists were suppose to make me feel better. Why couldn't he understand that there was nothing anyone could do, there was not a magic trick or any words that would ease my pain.

There's a cafe that's built out on a dock a couple of miles from where we were staying. John loved the beach and wanted to spend the day there and have lunch at the cafe. I reluctantly agreed. As I stood on the dock at the the edge of the water, I felt a sense of peace. We took our seats at a table next to an open window. I'm not sure if it was smell of the water, the cool breeze blowing or the sound of the waves crashing in to the dock that was drawing me out to the deck. I just knew that I needed to walk outside. It was sprinkling and I was the only one standing at the rail. Surrounded by water, I stood there looking at the enormous ocean. I was overcome by a flood of emotions, but more than anything I was in a state of awe. The words every hair on your head is counted kept going through my mind. I thought of all the millions of creatures living in the ocean that I was looking at. Knowing they all, too, have a purpose and are surely counted. The rain was falling harder now, as were my tears. It had turned chilly but, I felt warmer than I had in a year. I could walk around in my state of dispare and be a non believer, but I could not look out at the amazing ocean and say there is no God. No man could ever create something as complicated and wonderful as this. I realised at that moment that there truly is a time and a purpose for everything and that there is something greater than us all. The ocean did for me what no doctor could do. I began living again that day.

It has been twenty years since that day and a lot has changed. I lost my husband ten years ago and shortly after his funeral I went back to that deck. The sun was shining and there were people everywhere but, I was once again overtaken with the feeling of a spiritual love. A love greater than anything on earth could compare to.

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