great mysteries of life?

I just spent the last 2 days at my favorite place in the world: Nags Head, NC. One of the things I decided to do while I was gone was to document everything I could. So I took 626 pictures.

Not gonna lie, I'm not sure when I've ever taken that many pictures, especially not in 2 days. I took 200 pictures of a sunrise...ONE day. Add in last night's sunset and this morning's sunrise, solid 400.

So while I was sitting there, on the beach, in the chilly First-Day-of-Spring air, I thought about why the beach is so darn photogenic. I mean, obviously it's beautiful and all that...but I realized why I am so fascinated. Every time I stopped taking a picture I found something else I wanted to take a picture of.

It's no secret that my relationship with God has been...less than satisfactory? I realize that, as Christians our report card never comes up with all A's (or all S' if you teach first grade), but I haven't even been trying to attend school, as it were. I've been very truant in my relationship with Jesus and I never felt it more than when I got to the beach. The beach is my "place". That sounds so ridiculous to say. The beach is the only...ONLY place I can sit by myself. It is the only place I will go alone. I don't even like going to get groceries or gas alone...but I'll sit alone on a beach for hours. Anyway, I typically feel really connected to God there...something about relatively uninterrupted nature. After all, the ocean is the one place we can't just "go invade". We can't go live under it automatically, not without coming up for air. We can't build right into it unless we want our structures to crumble. I am fascinated by this huge body of water that I respectfully fear doing what it's done, uninterrupted, for centuries. I realized Friday afternoon that I hadn't been "there", at the beach or anywhere, in a really long time. God and I hadn't been clicking and I've been relatively unaffected by it. However, being there this weekend was like seeing the beach all over again.

Sitting with a camera was INSANE for me because I realized that EVERY second at the beach is different. Yesterday it took about an hour for the sun to start rising and get all the way up into the sky. Today it took about 30 minutes. I mean, literally, I got up and the sun wasn't peeking out at all. By the next hour it was *hot* sitting in direct sunlight. It was insane. Every snap of the camera showed the sun in a different position...amazing.

This brings me to my point (sorry it took so long): the beach has been doing the "same" thing over and over for centuries...and yet it never does the same thing twice. Every second, every wave break, every seashell washed up is different. Every. Single. Time.

Amazing.

Also amazing, what a surprise unexpected colors can be. :)
Happy Spring! :)