Sand dollar significance

Something about solitude and bodies of water renders me speechless and often tearful.

It’s the feeling of insignificance. I am alone, without another person to provide descriptors. If mom’s beside me, I am daughter. If friends are beside me, I am HJ. But if I’m by myself, who am I? Next to an ocean or a lake or a river, one thing I am becomes incredibly clear: I am small, very small. The horizon seems to go on forever and ever, and where do I fit on that line? Do I even fit on that line? Because there’s millions of other people vying for their spot on that line too! And the waves just keep ebbing and flowing, and they’ve been ebbing and flowing since way before I popped out at North Memorial Hospital. And they’ll keep ebbing and flowing long after I’m gone, I’m sure. And that river isn’t just flowing past me. It’s flowing past bajillions of other people and places. And I become overwhelmed about my purpose on earth, if I even have a stinkin’ purpose! And I’ve been praying praying praying to God, but really, how the heck can He possibly listen to all of us down here?! When there are things, like oceans, things so much bigger than me. I know people say you always feel closer to God in nature, and I do sometimes, but other times I feel far away from Him. Completely off His map when I’m next to the ocean!

One day right after moving to California, I was running alone along the Pacific as the sun was setting. I was crying. Crying because so many things I had thought were for sure turned out to be temporary. And so many things I desired seemed so impossible. I felt small and my prayers felt weak. I felt like one of the miniscule pieces of sand—again one of a bajillion—I was running on. Until I looked down and saw a sand dollar. I stopped. I wiped my eyes with the shoulder strap of my sports bra. I bent over and picked up the sand dollar, slightly smaller than the palm of my hand. I walked closer to the water so that when the wave came in I could rinse the sand off of it. I held it up in the setting sunlight; It was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Symmetrical. Five leaf-shaped points (making the star look a little like weed, but… ) and little indents in all the right places. I knew without a doubt that a God who created such a perfect crazy little thing (what is a sand dollar anyways?), could certainly have a plan for my life. That if He cared enough to make a sand dollar look so beautiful, I may be small but I am far from insignificant to Him. And He most certainly can hear me.

That’s why I’d like to get a tattoo of a sand dollar. So that I don’t forget this, because I forget it on a daily basis. But I remembered yesterday as I ran along Lake Champlain alone that God knows all the drops that make up the body of water known as HJ.

Matthew 10: 29-31 talks about this. Not with water, but birds. It says,
" … not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows."

Speechless and tearful!