I like to go to the beach every so often. Now, I'm not a fan of swimming so much as I am just sitting and watching the water or walking in the hard sand. Not the awful walk TO the water...that part is the worst. (Walking on squishy dry sand is miserable and a one-way ticket to me twisting an ankle. I'm just saying... Beach volleyball? You guys are so dumb. No thank you.) I like to watch the waves come in and wash over the sand. It's relaxing and makes me feel small...all my problems are so silly.
I went down to the coast of Alabama a few years ago with one of my best friends and her family. She has 4 kids and we packed up the van and away we went. While the car ride deserves it's own blog post (blowing out a tire in Elizabethtown, the baby Scarlett throwing up all over herself and my backpack, screaming children for hours on end...) I want to talk about what it was like to be in the water. We had a beach house literally steps from the Gulf of Mexico. We could see the oil rigs, there was debris from the hurricane on the beach buried under the sand, it was pitch black in the middle of the night. The stars took your breath away. I was swimming with the oldest kid, Jonah, and we were literally being pummeled by the waves. To be fair, we probably shouldn't have even been in the water. The waves were way over my head, we were clinging to each other as we were just tossed around like little ducks in a bathtub. It was awesome. We were laughing so hard, even though it was really scary at times. When we had finally swallowed enough ocean water, we laid on the sand and I picked up some beach wood and drew a picture in the sand. The waves kept coming and washing it away. I gave up, we went inside and moved on with our day.
We do that every time we go to the beach don't we? We use a stick, our finger, a rock, a shoe...and we write in the sand. A message we want to say, but it gets washed away every time. Even if we write it in the miserable-to-walk-in dry sand, it still won't remain. Sand is not a very good place to write things. It's probably the most temporary place I can think of to write something down.
And yet, when we are drawing boundaries in our dating lives, we seem to write things in the sand don't we? We have strong opinions about what we are going to do or not going to do with the opposite sex, but when the time comes to be firm about our boundaries, we suddenly find that they were written in sand and when we look back, they are gone. Or how about our boundaries for what we look at online (read: Pornography)? Or the substances we let in our lives like drugs and alcohol? Or what about our boundaries for the close friends we have? I think it's easy to be general with your boundaries but when you don't set firm and concrete lines, you wind up with a fuzzy line in the sand that is blown away by the wind and water. Before you know it, you are doing things you said you would never do, living in a way you said you would never live, and now you have to go back and try to fix the mistakes you made when you didn't have to make them in the first place. God doesn't set rules and restrictions on us because He wants to control us, He places them on us to protect us from heartache and shame. You know that old adage, "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission" that I've heard my whole life? Don't believe it. It's better to not have regrets and to be called a loser than to ignore God's love for you by doing whatever you want in your life. I know that sounds harsh. I'm feeling the conviction in my own heart too. Boundaries are so important in our lives...so take some time and be specific with them.
Oh, and maybe draw them in some wet cement instead of wet sand.
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