Sandcastles

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement
Sandcastles

One Granddaddy started the sandcastle which quickly attracted the rest of the family to pitch in to build a charming sand village within attractive sand walls. It was altogether a magnificent sand village complete with feathers, shells, and straw trees. We enjoyed the wonderful creation. Passerbys carefully walked around our castle. There was plenty of room to play without disturbing the large sandcastle built with pleasant hours of family cooperation. Later during afternoon naptime, we were sitting on the beach house balcony when we watched a car drive down the beach. It passed between our castle and the water and continued down the beach a little bit before, to our surprise, it turned around and headed back to purposefully drive through our castle flattening the structure. As we stood in indignation, the car turned around and once again drove through our sand village, completely destroying it. We stood in outrage at the carnage as the car drove on down the beach, leaving a family of highly annoyed people and disappointed children in its wake.

Of course, it was only a castle built of sand, doomed from the onset to eventual destruction from wind and water. But why not leave such an undertaking to nature’s high tide instead of deliberately wiping it out? The kindest interpretation we could come up with was someone feared it might contain something that would trip or hurt the feet of unaware beach walkers after dark. Still. Life carries many events that leave us feeling disappointed or even betrayed. If we can allow the tide of forgiveness to sweep over our beach of crushed hearts and expectations, it will restore our attitudes like the real high tide. The tide that comes in on a regular, dependable schedule is so certain that the times are published daily in some newspapers. The high tide cleans a beach, leaving it looking like new as far as it reaches. High tide makes me think of forgiveness. When we can truly forgive a wrong or a hurt, it clears the beach of our thoughts and emotions and returns the beach to its previous condition if not even better.