Don’t Rub Out the Sand

I received a text from a friend this week announcing that she has a new job. She said, “Thank you for inspiring me and for helping me to live more consciously.” When I told her I did nothing, that she believed in herself and that made all the difference, she replied “yes, true but sometimes we need reminding and you did that for me. I often catch myself now thinking ‘don’t rub out the sand.’”

I had to smile.  She was referring to a story I had told her over coffee a couple of weeks ago.

Reg and I were walking along the beach on a beautiful morning. One of those days where the sky and the sand has a rosy glow in the light of the sunrise. No one else was on the beach and I decided to write the word TRUST in the sand and take a photo of it, figuring that it might come in handy for the blog one day.

So I wrote the word, took my photos and then looked up. About 500m down the beach two people were walking towards me. Suddenly I felt very self-conscious and embarrassed. I quickly rubbed out the word TRUST, despite the fact the waves were coming in and probably would have rubbed out the word before they got to me.

Suddenly, I heard a voice in my head say “What? You can write the word TRUST, you can talk about TRUST, you can meditate on TRUST, but you don’t really TRUST. If you did, you would have left that word in the sand and trusted the waves to rub it out.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

The voice was right.

I could DO all those things. But I wasn’t BEING and just completely trusting.

How many times have I rubbed out the sand in my life, rather than letting what’s meant to happen naturally, happen?

In so many areas of my life, I would say I was trusting, but then I would DO something to self-sabotage myself. Or say I was trusting, but put something in place, ‘just in case’ what I was trusting to happen didn’t happen.

I continued walking to the end of the beach thinking about this. Remembering time and time again in my life where I’ve rubbed out the sand. And I vowed to try a different way. To trust fully. To let go and let God.

As I walked back, I reached the point where I had written TRUST in the sand earlier. There was no sign I had written anything there as the waves had washed the sand smooth. I decided to write the word LOVE as I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of love at that moment. I took a photo and then stepped away leaving the word for someone else to find.

And wouldn’t you know it? At that moment, a rogue wave came and rubbed it out for me.