80 BILLION GRAINS OF SAND

I was recently in the IGA on South Padre Island, Tx waiting in line to check out.  Next to me was a guy that had to be 6'2".  Feeling very short at just under five feet, I looked at him, laughed, and told him that I felt "quite short."  He just laughed, smiled, and with great wisdom told me that "as long as your feet are on the ground you aren't short ." 

I got it.  He was right! This guy in Tommy Bahama shorts and flipflops had hit the nail on the head, on this my annual trek to the ocean for my birthday.  I am not short!

'If you're ever lying on a beach with 80 billion grains of sand beneath you, 700 thousand ocean waves before you, 60 million stars stretched out above you, and you're still not at all impressed, I want you to think about this:  The light you see reflecting from the stars is over one million years old.

WOW!

But then, just before you start to feel like a mere blip in the gigantic scheme of things, please remember this?  Yes, you are small, but you're also irreplaceable and invaluable, and miraculous.  Those stars don't have anything on you.'

 ~Mark D. Sanders and Tia Sillers~

I Hope You Dance

So whether I stand beside the 'tall guy' in the grocery store on an island in the Gulf of Mexico, or beside the ocean, I still feel small.  But I also feel blessed, grateful, courageous, hopeful, resilient, hopeful, and believe that tomorrow just could be better than today, and that I will get a second chance, and I will make a difference, and that I do truly matter.  And just when I least expect it - I find my heart in my throat when I stoop to pick up a seashell on the sand and rise to see the sun setting in a tropical array of orange, auburn, and yellow - I am overcome with awe.