Gathering Shells and Knitting Hearts

Last Updated on February 22, 2021

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As I walked along the beach my eyes were continually drawn to the ocean waves lapping against the shore.  I couldn’t help grinning as the incoming waves tickled my toes at the water’s edge.  The bubbly ebb and flow of the salt water was cool and refreshing… much like the 48 hours I shared with sweet sisters last week.

Prior to arriving at my beachfront destination I was filled with anxious anticipation… finally I was to meet for the first time so many of the women God had brought into my life over the past months.  How do you come to care about someone you have never met, whose eyes you have never probed, whose sweet self you have never embraced?

Through story, daily story, their story.  The written word, when shared transparently has the ability to draw you in.  More so than a face-to-face conversation because somehow, wonderfully, the computer screen serves as the mask and you can reveal the real you.  There is safety and comfort in the distance.

I wasn’t prepared for how much I was going to love these women.  These women, who had been placed in my path by the One who created them.  These women who had taken a chance and joined with me in a God-given dream that I feel ill-equipped to lead.  It is odd being the Creator of something… it seems puffed up somehow.  I rest in the knowledge that what has been created here, truly was not created by me.  Rather it was facilitated.  God knit together a dream in this heart, and the yarn that holds it all together are the individual lives and callings shared and brought together to reveal His colorful creation.

Lives filled with ups and downs, their own ebb and flow. Godly women, who mother with passion, and are fulfilling their own dreams and their own creations… but always with God and family being placed in the forefront of every decision.

Together, in one room, there was no longer the safety of the screen, the hiding behind the veil… no keypad to tap away on… edits and rewrites were not a part of this sharing and caring.  My heart soared as I recognized there was no need for the “protection” of the keypad with this fellowship designed by God.

Strengths, weaknesses, failures, successes, sorrows, victories, triumphs and fears… all spoken into the air, bouncing off the walls and landing in my heart.

The most amazing part of the cacophony of words dancing through the room… was that they were being shared by lips and hearts that span generations.  Mothers with young children at home, school age, adopted, fostered, borrowed, special needs, teens, adult children – a true picture of the Titus 2 mandate.

God has assembled a group of multigenerational, multi-talented and multi-broken women whose desire this side of heaven is to increase its population.

And in the process create a little bit of heaven here on earth… in the walls of their own homes… and with others they are called to influence.

My heart is full; my mind is racing.

Where does God want us to go from here and how will we get there?  We shared, planned, listened, dreamed and prayed.  Trusting the One who is the giver of our dreams and whose words assure us that though we do not know the how or the outcome… we know He does.  And we trust it all to Him.

The waves tickle, the sun warms – as do the memories, now held gently in my heart.  As I begin to playfully pick up seashells I am drawn to the individual beauty of each one.  I find myself picking up the less than perfect ones… the ones marred and scarred yet lying beautifully on the seashore alongside the seemingly pristine shells.

I gently cradle each chosen one in my hand and know that they are representative of the women whose eyes, bodies and hearts I have gleefully embraced more deeply.

And I am grateful.