I sit in the soft sand with the sun beating down on my back. I feel each ray radiate into my skin as I feel it becoming red. The sky is almost cloudless and allows the true blue of the ocean shine to all those who look to her. The waves are powerful, forming perfect tubes as they crash into one another and then onto shore.  My body longs to be among them, to be twisted, turned, and crashed upon. My mind longs to feel the silence beneath the roaring surface.

As I watch the ocean, I realize life is just like the waves, but not in the normal cliché of ups and downs. The ocean is powerful, the ocean is in control, and no matter how hard we try to tame it, to own it, to conquer it, we are shown time and time again we have no control. Just like life. We go through life making plans, goals, dates, and we schedule each moment as if they were ours to own. As if these moments are ours to dictate and as if we decide the outcome of each instance.

As I watch the waves, I see them piling on top of one another as the white foam intermingles with the trash and debris. This debris being reminisces for metaphors of broken dreams, broken plans, and lost hopes.

A month ago, I was so certain of my plans, goals, hopes, and desires and my sight was set on a vision created in my mind. I placed blinders on either side of my eyes to keep myself from getting distracted. My heart was set and my mind was made. And then I met the ocean.

I feel myself among the waves. I am thrown into a current whipping my body back and forth, my hair was being knotted, tangled, pulled, and twisted. My arms are waving in all directions and my head and feet are over top of one another. And here I am in the chaos, in the frantic struggle to find my way to the surface as I am forced into the silence I longed for; without control, without knowing, and in complete surrender of this massive power.

I am still there beneath the waves. My body limp as I have given up the struggle to reach the surface. I am being tossed in every which way, but as I surrender, the ocean brings me up to breathe. As I am brought to the surface,  I replenish myself and my faith. I replenish my faith in the waves, the current, the struggle, and the ocean. And just as I think I am lost in this chaos forever I feel my feet touch the sand and the sand feels soft between my toes. I plant my legs strong beneath me as I stand to see the shore.

I look around me and there is my debris floating in the water; my broken dreams, goals, and old hopes. As I look up to the sky, my eyes begin to focus and I soon realize that this debris around me is of my former self. The controlling me who never gave up and surrendered over to my higher power . My mind is filled with new goals, new dreams, and new hopes. However, they are much lighter, more pure, and less selfish. Through the chaos, I was given my calm. Through this brokenness, I found my purity.

And in this moment, She Began.