The Beauty of it All

My annual visit to the beach reminds me of many life lessons:

The rhythm of the tides reminds me that there is a time of giving plenty and time for retreat.

Wait with patience; the ocean must deliver that beautiful shell to the shore.

You really don’t need a lot of things. You can spend an entire day with just a towel

and sunglasses.

Creating memories will last longer than any gift I can give my children.

There are a lot of lessons being at the beach can teach us, but this year, family watching was especially sweet to me. The beauty of the ocean is obvious but I found so much beauty in the people around me. They were all very different, but all so beautiful. And I believe there were life lessons in seeing them all.

The elderly couple out boogie boarding with each other-no grandkids in sight-beautiful

The five year old boy trying for an hour to get the skim board to do what his older brother's did-beautiful

Hearing the grandparents of a divorced daughter telling their grandson that “no matter what your daddy does, he’s still your daddy”-beautiful

The father from NY trying to get that one perfect picture of his sons and taking 100 pictures in the attempt-beautiful

The long haired guy sitting alone just looking out into the ocean-beautiful

The young girls with perfect bodies-beautiful

The old gals in bikinis-beautiful

The young couple with twin babies sleeping under the umbrella-beautiful

The thirteen year old boy who wouldn’t take his shirt off-beautiful

The bunch, just over 21, singing karaoke-beautiful

The baby who tried shaking, wiping and rubbing, but couldn’t get the sand off his hand; the confused look on his face-beautiful

The little boy who looked back at the ocean in disgust when it swept away his sand castle-beautiful

Such simple moments, yet they were all beautiful beyond just seeing them. We live in a wonderful world, with wonderful people. We are all in different stages, and we all come in different modes and models, but it is all beautiful.