The Gift of Finding and Losing

I took a week-long beach vacation and it went a bit unplanned.

Even though I covered my skin with broad-spectrum, mineral sunscreen, SPF clothing, hats, and sunglasses; minimized exposure; and swallowed an allergy tablet each morning, my skin reacted poorly, evidenced by rashes here and there, like small patches of wildflowers suddenly brought to bloom under the summer sun. The V of my neck, the tips of my ears, the trail from kneecap to shin to ankle — all a reminder that some parts of living are not for everyone. The sobering thought that I would have to let it go: enjoying the warmth of sun rays and walks on the beach.

Sometimes, even when you are wise, cautious, and moderated, some parts of living will still cause you pain. You will become an observer of others. You will remember the times you could partake. It will make you a little teary-eyed but not sorrowful, like nostalgia or homesickness.

The trip dolled out a portion. It also brought me an intricate encounter with joy.

At the beginning, I felt the remembrance of Isaiah 43. For the past several years in my life, the Lord has been making everything new and He is completely serious about not leaving a thing unredeemed, even a North Carolina beach vacation. In the place of ancient history, I was given better memories, the hard washed away, the good bolstered, like a successfully trained climbing rose, strong canes carrying it in new directions. I feel unworthy of this vibrant, spectacular kindness. Maybe I am sea glass; out of the oceanic panic of life, all my edges sloughed off, parts of me and angles I thought I needed, thought I was, slowly lost, rubbed and eroded to some new shape. A smooth orientation to reformation.

In this state of mind, I went souvenir shopping and, to my delight, found something I’d been looking for — a shell ring. Soft pink with a rub of cedar brown, cut clumsily into a nondescript shape, just like I had as a young girl. That original ring had snapped in two at some point, since shell is a fragile, porcelain-like thing. When I found the new ring while shopping, I was so delighted and filled with joy at a happy memory, returned or discovered — I’m not sure which.

My mistake was wearing it while helping to make dinner. My mistake was expecting joy to last long. The pressure of knife handle against shell was too great and the ring broke in two half moons.

I let the disappointment rest for 12 hours overnight in the refrigerator of my heart and waited to see what shape it would take. How could something so wonderful, the joy of my day, only last five hours? I should have known better, should have removed the ring before cooking, should have done what I could to protect how fragile it was.

What was more fragile, the ring or the joy?

Is this just how life is? Joy is found and joy crumbles. Delight is so short lived. Possessions should never be what propels joy, but this was more symbolic. It felt like all things new when I slipped that ring on my finger, like such a specific and sweet redo. Something I had been looking for and found, had wanted and been given. It irritated the scar-tissuey spot on my heart, rubbed thin from disappointment, and not yet, and all of the people and experiences I have loved that have not been mine to keep.

So what do I know? What have I learned? No matter how you tiptoe and maneuver yourself through life, life will ultimately happen to you. There are moments where it appears that life bends around you, but maybe those are just the moments you are in synchronicity with it. So much of the time I feel reactionary. I chose the shop and the souvenir, but maybe joy was waiting for me to arrive. And then what? Twenty-five years apart, two identical circumstances: broken rings. You can’t change some things no matter how much you mature. We learn to let joy join us for however long it stays — even five hours, even five seconds.

The question I was left with is this: how many times can you go back to a thing that brings joy but doesn’t last? The shop had a small basket with a few shell rings left. I knew I could easily return and buy another or all six, a storehouse of a good memory. But what would that tell me about myself? Why did that feel like the wrong thing to do?

Because what I really want is for good things to come to me of their own accord and stay forever without me doing gymnastics to make sure nothing breaks. I think, deep down, that is the only way I believe I deserve things. As though a broken ring means it is not for me. As though a sun rash means the light rays are not mine to touch.

Or is this all just the great instructor, patience, nudging me toward contentment? As if to say, Just a little, just a little, not too much. Just a few sun rays. And be gentle with anything that feels holy and delightful. Do not labor while your fingers are laced with joy. Sit awhile. Hold your hands out so you can see the gift and appreciate its beauty. It may not stay, but it is yours for a moment.

***

Two days later I returned to the shop.

I knew the potential outcomes: the rings would be there, they would be sold, or they would be restocked — a full basket of joy just for me. I secretly longed for the third option, hoped this would turn out to be a lesson in provision and abundance.

What I didn’t expect was what happened.

The rings were there as I’d left them, maybe six or eight to choose from. But as I picked them up and began trying them on my fingers, I found that none fit quite right or had too odd a shape. Not one was for me. I, quite literally, was not fit to receive the joy. Or, more specifically, the joy I wanted no longer fit me.

I am still sitting with what that means, but there is a growing sense in me as I look around my life that I can’t go back, can’t keep being the same. If I’m really growing, if I’ve really shed skin, and received a heart of flesh, and am undergoing the renewing of my mind, won’t all the fruits of the spirit taste differently? Won’t their shape and season shift? Peace feels different, joy looks different, self-control is an entirely new beast.

That ring was not joy; it was the memory of how simple and pure life used to be, which is a kind of joy — a joyful thought. Now, without it, I am tested to see if my spirit can carry a lift in the absence of getting what I want.

The desire to get back to that simplicity is not wrong in itself, but I have to go there as my new self. And it will not be going back, it will be going forward to a place made from the first blocks of the new creation, a place with only a front door, a place that mirrors Eden. All this time, the way to ease the longing for what I’m missing is to go forward and to let the trenchant, gentle, shocking chisel of the Lord reduce my covering until I arrive, gleaming, lessened but magnified, the priceless first edition of myself, a book worthy to be opened by the hands of God.

***

I came home from vacation with a bag of seashells collected from the shoreline, all sizes and colors. All the ones that delighted me, I took. A whisper rolled over me, inviting me to have all I wanted. There is joy for you everywhere on the road if you’re moving in the right direction.