Thankful

Thanksgiving weekend. Well, Canadian thanksgiving weekend anyway, one of the perks of being both an American and a Canadian is that I get to be thankful twice a year. So blessed, I know. This thanksgiving I am in Cedar by the Sea with my parents and younger sister. It’s the first time I’ve seen Cedar in the fall and it is beautiful. The leaves have just started changing color, the smell of wood fires is in the air and the deer walk gently through our yard. Thankfulness is not hard to come by in these parts. But one of the things I am most thankful for in our still new home is that it is so very close to the ocean.

Confession: this is not the beach by our house, but the picture was too good to pass up.

There is something incredible about the ocean; it has always been a place of thought and peacefulness to me. I have inherited this love of the beach from my mother, she loves the beach, always has. And though I didn’t grow up on Vancouver Island like she did, I still managed to visit the ocean quite a lot in my childhood. Living in Holland makes commutes to the ocean a bit easier than it would be for most. It wasn’t until last year that I realized just how important the ocean is to me.

Last year was a good year but it had its challenges, and at the point were I felt I just needed to get away from it all, I needed to go to a beach. This may sounds silly to you, why would I need to go to the beach? I’m afraid I cannot rationally answer this question, but there is something about the vastness and power of the crashing waves and the endless horizon that helps me clear my mind and bring me back to reality. To the realization that no matter what I may be dealing with, the world is so much bigger and whatever my issue is really isn’t a big deal. Thankfully my friend Catherine came to my rescue and drove me down to a secluded beach in Washington, it was perfect. A nice rainy day, the waves crashing on the rocks and it was exactly what I needed.

This summer I made a road trip to Calgary with a bunch of my friends. I had never driven through the Rockies in Canada before, somehow they seem a lot bigger than the Rockies in the states. And as we were driving through the middle of these giant mountains a strange feeling came over me, something I don’t think I’d ever felt before: claustrophobia. I felt so closed in, so small and not in a good way. I missed the vastness of the ocean. Don’t get me wrong; I love mountains. I like seeing them in the distance, I like the way the light hits them at sunset and I love hiking in them, but to be stuck in between them: not for me. Yes, I’m an ocean girl. I like the beach.

So what am I thankful for this Thanksgiving Day, besides the usual things such as family, friends, great education, food, and numerous other blessings, I am thankful to be near the ocean. To see how majestic my God is by looking out over the ocean, feeling the breeze on my face and the mist from the water, and of course I am thankful for the mountains in the background.