When the wind blows...

Exodus 15: 10 Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.

***

When I was young I used to sit on the sandy beaches of Ocean City Maryland, either late at night, or at sunrise, just staring out into nothing. The Atlantic seems endless, with its frothy yellow foam, rolling tides gripping the shoreline, ripples of sea continuously slipping and sliding.

The aroma of sea-salt gathered in the wind, carried to my nose as I inhaled all the beauty of life, living and God. The sand would squish between my toes and I could just fall back, gazing up at the infinity of stars in the sky, or watch the clouds make a shape-dance while the winds swept them away.

What I’m getting at is this, we never know when the tides will shift or when the wind blows. We are not supposed to know, that is what makes life such a wondrous mystery is that every day we wake up and have to realize, any way the wind blows, we must  learn to accept the ebb and flow.

Can you control the ocean? Can man? Of course not. Can you put the wind in a bag and carry it with you, only to release it on a hot summers day, right when you need it most? Well can you? You know the answer to that question without even blinking an eye.  But as any two year-old child wonders all the time is, why? We adults can surmise, but even sometimes we have to wonder, why can’t I control the wind, or cease the ocean from rolling? Why? Why? Why?

Okay, you want me to spell it out for you don’t you? You’re probably wondering where the writing lesson is in all of this mumbo-jumbo aren’t you? I’m here to say, that no matter where we think our novel is heading and no matter what we have in mind for the novel, the winds of change can always blow through and make us see something new or different.

Maybe you had a romance in mind and now it looks like it is shaping up to be a para-normal novel, perhaps a thriller turned into a love story, it may just so happen, that your non-fiction tale took a fictional turn. The winds of diversity swept in, cleared the cobwebs from your brain, and you swiftly accepted this change, moved on and it became a best seller. (Hey a girl can dream can’t she?)

Life can be like that too, you know. A complete about-face shakes your world and you wonder what happened? Where did routine and fixation go? Friends, allow me to let you in on a secret, the wonder of it all is placed right in God’s hands. Do you think He wondered what he was doing at creation? He never wonders! He created you and he was well pleased. Although we may not be happy with the winds of change, or the fluctuating shift in the tides in our lives, but HE and he alone sits and doesn’t wonder what is going to happen to you next. He already knows.

Just as the character you created. You know the end result.

As a family, we would eventually return back home to South Baltimore where the concrete and asphalt hugged you until you were about to explode. But every day of every year I always kept the wind in my heart and the flow glued to my life, and I never wondered, what next? :)

Job 27: 21 The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth: and as a storm hurleth him out of his place.