It has been awhile since the sun was out and the tide was low enough for me to venture out past the blockade of stone walls out into the sea. Today is beautiful. I just stand along the rocks and look out across the sea and into the hillside and just begin to see my life. The joy of having an Ipod I find to be very soothing on days like this. It is a shame that I have allowed my own spirit to be so weak that it must have someone else’s words pressed through my mind to say what I am feeling. But there are men and women who do it so well. My mind is full of so many thoughts as of late. Where I am going? Where have I come from? Am I alone in this journey? Will I ever see her again? Will I ever return home to see my family? Then suddenly these thoughts begin to fade. I can not hear what is going on around me because of the worldly block of interference through my Ipod, but my eyes do not fail me to what I see in front of me. I see a young women standing far out close to the tide. She is just standing. She is to far away and the way the sun shines I only see her as a silhouette, but I notice splashing up all around her. The tide is beginning to make its way back in and is crashing against the rocks. I pull the ear buds from my ear to just hear what the world is saying. It is quite, the world is any ways. Nature is not. The sea moving, the birds flying, the waves crashing against their favored place on the rocks. I look back to the young woman and notice that she is walking away and heading back to the land. I notice there is some splashing following after her but can not make it out. Then I see two puppies emerge from the water chasing after something. The young woman is through a bottle out into the water and the two puppies hurriedly dart into the water to retrieve their toy before it is swept away. They dance around in the water as a toy in itself to be discovered. I am now walking towards the young woman, more or less just along the path of rocks I find to be safe to jump to. As I get close she looks at me and just smiles. The puppies are some what startled and drop their toy. I see that it is just an old plastic soda bottle. Both dogs seem somewhat confused. They look to they young girl for a few seconds and then look back at me. The world for them has come to a stand still. There is someone new on this stretch of land, something new has come into their world and they are frozen next to their master and next to one another. It seems waiting for one to make the next move. I kneel down to show them I am not there to hurt them but they just cower even lower to the ground. The young girl smiles and simply bends down and picks up the bottle, rears back and throws the bottle past me into the water. The time for stillness has been broken. Both pups as if nothing had ever happened darted past me after the bottle and splashed around in the water some more. The girl went on her way and I again turned my attention to the sea. The tide was beginning to slowly creep in back to its resting place in this Lock. I decided it was time to move along to the wall and get off of this current dry beach before it became part of sea. I have walked this beach and sea side many times in the past few months. It is always beautiful to me. The way the colors of the sun and sky embrace one another and then the way the mountain side and the wind send its sweet fresh fragrance across the water. These couples in nature have been making love like this for, well sense the words of God spoke them into being. My mind begins to break apart and tries to understand that this wind is the same wind from the beginning of time; this water is the same water that filled this dry land on that fateful day. The sun has continued to shine since God placed it in its place and said “Be still and know that I am God, do what I have made you for”. The sun has seen the world from a different perspective than the land has seen itself. This embrace has been happening from the beginning of time. And here I stand being breathed on by the wind that Adam himself felt that day. That day that Adam and Eve held hands together in the garden and the sun shone on them and the wind blew across their bodies is the same sun, the same wind that now directs my attention to the age of this world. To the power of Him who has sent me here. This powerful Creator who has said to me “Be still and know that I am God. Do what I have made you for.” I am quickly shaken back to reality as the tide is now upon me. In my trance I had forgot to fully place myself on dry land. I quickly ran up the stone steps to get away from fast approaching high tide. I placed my ear buds back in and began walking again. I have walked this dock many times. Past the houses and children playing. Few conversations have taken place here for me as I am normally just going about my day. The world again disappears from my mind as the songs of another begin to fill my head and I myself begin to disappear. The air is still and fresh. The word relaxing can not really describe this place. Very therapeutic. As I round the corner I am hit by a huge rush of wind. It takes me off guard and knocks one of my ear buds out of my ear. how quickly I am brought to reality as I look ahead of me and see now the tide is fully in. there is a beauty to this as well as a down side. The beauty is that you see the water flowing in such a way that makes you want to just dive in and be swept away. The sound of the birds intermingles with the movement of the water and I begin to hear the song of nature again. The downside is my path way is now flooded. The dockside walk on high tide loses its functionality as a walk way. I am stuck. Do go back the way I came and walk this long road of something I have seen many times before, which will take time out of my day, or do I brave this insane idea of running through the water along this walk way inevitably getting soaked. Or do I take the route of just sitting and watching the tide. I have done this once before here and was just blown away. It is something the people do here. The older people in the town will stop what they are doing and watch the tide come in. they watch as they have many times before as the tide comes crashing through its man made barriers and finds its place of rest as it has sense the beginning of time. I hear this voice in the back of my mind begging the question. “Should you fear me? Should you bow before me and all my presence? I have taught the sea where to go. I have made it a boundary that it will always obey. No matter how many times it crashes into that boundary, it will never prevail. No matter how many times it roars my boundary will remain strong. Who are you? Who do you think you are? I ask you again should you fear me who has done all of this?”(Bible reference to Jeremiah 5.22) I stand in amazement that sure enough the water has its limits. It comes and goes at different times of the day, always blaring past the village’s man made boundaries, but always stopping in the same place. It knows not to cross this line. It knows to fear and bow to this One who has told it no further you shall go. Why do I not fear this One? Have I ever bowed to the boundaries He has created? Then I realize something. Something inside of me is yearning for this question to be answered and the questions that have been plaguing my mind for the past several months. “Who are you?” “Where have you come from?” “Where are you going?” “Am I going to go this alone?” “When will I find you are really all I need?” And now the question of “Do I really fear you?” There are so many questions that go along with this simple question. What does it mean to fear? Is this Person worthy to fear? Huge questions. Questions that I will not be able to answer standing on a dock walk during high tide. I make a mad dash through the water to the nearest bench so that I can hop on top of it to the large stone wall. I have seen the children run across this wall many times before and thought why not a 22 year old over weight youth pastor. I had made it to the wall without getting to wet. I was pretty pleased with my self. But I now had to stop and catch my breath. I decided to just sit on the wall for a bit and relax. It was still a beautiful day and even though we have got a lot of those here lately they are far and few between. One minute it can be sunny and warm then 10 minuets later it is raining and 10 degrees colder. So as the people do, as I do, when it is a beautiful day you take it in as much as possible. In sitting on the wall I decided to think about where I had come from. The year is 2007. Could have never thought I would have been in this year. The place Killyleagh, Northern Ireland. My mind begins to spin as I think about me a Oklahoma boy who grew up on a farm has only been to five or six states in the United States is now living in a sea village in Northern Ireland. God does have a sense of humor indeed. I had a pretty good family life. We were not poor and I always got what I wanted. Have the younger pesky brother. You know normal life. We had our ups and downs. Dad was a pretty angry fellow growing up. Didn’t really know how to express him self and would just normally erupt on the family. Was always a popular kid in school and made the grade as they say. Had gone to a great school in Arkansas and got some of the best training in youth ministry I truly believe money could buy. Had fallen in and out of love a few times. First true love was in high school with a beautiful girl named Jessica. Went sour as most high school loves do. But yeah, I would say that is where I come from. Pretty normal at least in the 85 percentile of White Middle Classed American boys. But something felt different. My heart was telling me differently. Something was not quite right with me. There is hurt that is deep inside of me that needs correction. My mind and heart seem to be having a reunion. I leave them to it as the tide begins to go back out. Instead of making my way home, I decide to jump off the wall and walk to the shore and follow the tide. I hear this voice calling to me again. “As the tide comes and goes it will always return. It has its ways that I have created it for. To carry in and to bring out. This year will test you. You will cry. You will hurt. You are breaking now and you know it. The tide of My grace and love have brought you here. When the tide pulls away it pulls away from you things that you do not need. Don’t hold on them please.” I quickly grab my chest and fall to the ground. My knees firmly planted into the mud as the water is being pulled away. Nice how an hour ago I wanted to stay as dry as possible and now I seem to be as the puppies earlier and just embracing this new sight. Humility and worship I now find must go hand in hand. What feels like a heart attack is worship? My heart is breaking into a thousands pieces. I close my eyes and begin to see a vision. More of an idea. I look out and see my heart is shattered into thousands of little pieces and as I kneel in the mud I see this man in tattered clothes begin picking up the pieces. I don’t like what I am seeing. I don’t like him picking up what I have messed up. I don’t want him to be doing this because he is too delicate with the pieces. I can tell he has done this many times before and as he carefully picks each piece up he will many times after me. He sifts through all of the pieces, for there is a lot of other junk that has broken with this fragile heart. The lusts, the dreams, the false hopes, the false loves, the addictions, the pains, the hurts of friends, the rejection of others, the lie of love that I have lived for so many years. Once more I realize I have been living a lie. I have kept people at a distance from this tapped up heart because I knew how fragile it was. I had never let God heal the brokenness I had from losing my grandparents, the abuse and anger of my father, the relationship with Jessica, all of it had been stored up in my heart. I have kept so many people from knowing me because I am coward. I guised it in manliness saying it was for their best interest that they not know me or love me. But I now see how full of it I was. It was for me. I didn’t want them touching me. And now here, broken, and alone there is this man whom I feel I have met before picking up the pieces. I want to make things right, I want to fix things, but this man tells me to “Sit…don’t move. You might hurt it. You might step on a good piece.” He looks and smiles and just simply goes back to work sifting through the pieces of this broken heart. After several hours of gathering up the good pieces he takes it to this fountain. A very very dirty fountain; filthy and disgusting with all sorts of just filth running down it. It is rusted and reeks of death and age. And he looks at me and smiles. “This is your filth that has turned this fountain so rotten. But it’s ok. This is the fountain of humanity. What once was pure has become stained for ever, once dirty it can not clean itself. Come with me to the river.” I get up and go with him to this fast flowing river and there we sit on the shore just watching. Watching as thousands of others sit along the shore with their hearts in their hands just watching the water as I do. He hands me my heart. “Here…it’s fixed. You do now what it was made for.” I look at him confused. I then just stare into the rushing water. Millions of hearts as clean as could be. A river not tarnished by them and the filth that was once in them. I look and see those along the shore throwing in their hearts to the water. A huge load it seems to be taken off of their person as they watch their heart simply float away. I look at my guide with astonishment. “Where do they go?” I asked. “To the great Sea of His love. To join the millions of other hearts that let go…they let go so that they could truly live, truly love. It is the boundary that all man most come to. To let go of all that hey have. You can not cross the boundary he has created. You simply embrace it and life becomes as it should. Men and women fight against it. they roar up to fight what is set in time but to no avail. These men and women…some have been here at this point for years. Some have been here for days….while others just approached as you did. How long are you going to stand here and hold on to that rubbish? Your heart…is not His heart. Thrown into this river…you are giving Him yours. The release you saw was not a release but a receiving. They received the Heart of Christ. Will you throw your heart in this river? That is the question that many men and women face. Are you willing to give up and truly live?” He then stood up and walked away from me. And there, here I now kneel with my heart in my hands fixed and pure, do I take it back and allow filth to pollute it once more or do I throw it in. But I now have the option to have a new heart as the man has told me. One that will not break, at least not in the same way. Am I ready to throw it in? “Are you ready?” A soft demanding voice asks. “Are you ready to really live and love in the truth that I have proclaimed from the beginning of the world? True Love without Truth is a Lie. The truth is my child I Miss YOU!!!” How long will I stand on the shore of forgiveness with my tattered wounds and hurts when simply jumping into the water will release all that I am? As I come to I stand up and see the sea returning to its place of rest for the day. I stand in the mud a new person if I choose to throw away my heart for the purpose of Him who has called me. I stand again on a real shore in a real place in a real time and now have the question facing me of what next. I am here for a year. “Who are you?” “Where have you come from?” “Where are you going?” These are just a few of the questions I know will be answered before I leave this shore line. | 
