Sunday Newscape Magazine

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I remember going on vacation a few years ago (can it really be a vacation for a mother when she takes it with her children and her in-laws?) to Ocean Shores with my two daughters, Emma, then two and a half, and Ella 5 months.

What I noticed about this particular vacation was that I didn’t belong. That may sound odd, but I didn’t. Surrounding me were all these people who belonged to each other - my then husband to his family, my daughters to them, and they to my daughters. I belonged only to my daughters and my daughters to me. In retrospect, I realize now that a woman should not feel as if she doesn’t belong to her husband.

Reflecting on this vacation (I have yet to go on vacation since) has me pondering my place in this world: where I belong and to whom I belong. Think about all those people in the world to whom you belong; we all belong to someone, eventually.

While at the Ocean, Emma and I decided to take a walk down to the beach one afternoon. I like the ocean a lot; all that vast, open sea. The sound, the smells. The pure power of nature is overwhelming. A small child truly puts nature into perspective for you, and reminds you to respect it as they naturally show their fear of it. Emma would look at the ocean, and I could see she was scared of it by her body language. Children are wonderful at reminding us that the world is so much greater than we are.

On our walk, Emma and I began looking for sea shells. We were walking late in the day, so I did not expect to find anything. As we were walking, we came across a pretty little shell that wasn’t whole, but was still very beautiful. I picked it up and handed it to Emma, and said, “Look Em, isn’t it pretty?” She took the shell from me, saw that it was broken, dropped it on the ground, and said, “Yuck, it’s broken.”

I picked it up out of the sand, shook it off, and held it up for her to see. As I held it in my hand and pointed out the pretty features, I said, “Isn’t it beautiful?” To which she replied, “Yeah, Emma hold it.”

As Emma took the sea shell from my hand, I said, “You know Emma, we need to remember that just because something is broken doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful.”

The events of the past few months have left me feeling rather broken. I don’t feel like that sea shell after it had been picked up and wiped off. I feel covered in sand, buried, with people stepping over me, barely noticeable. I don’t have a place to which I belong. That was taken from me, and now I lay in the sand, hoping against hope, that someone will pick me up, gently wipe the sand from me, and see, although broken, just how beautiful I really am. I doubt this will happen. We are a society so very intent on having all that is beautiful, yet we are a civilization overflowing with broken souls. What an irony.

I won’t wait around to be picked up. I am unlike the shell because I have to pick myself up before the ocean sweeps me into its tides. I am broken. I have been betrayed, humiliated, left, and forgotten. But I do belong somewhere; I just haven’t figured out where. I also wonder if that is why God makes so many broken things in nature beautiful. To remind us that even though we are broken, we too are beautiful.

I’ll find my place in this world eventually. I may not belong to anyone or anywhere right now, but I know I do belong to my creator. I wish, in all honesty, that were enough for me right now. I know where I’m from; now I need to figure out where I’m going. God is there beside me: my comfort in that is great. For now though, I must simply get up from the sand, and start walking. Eventually, I will find a place where I belong. I will find my beautiful, and when I do, I will carry it with me.