In retrospect, this is cheesy, but I hate to waste the effort by deleting it...

One night last week I found myself at Pascagoula's "beach." It was about 1 a.m. I couldn't sleep, which isn't unusual for me. Insomnia is a lifestyle.

Sometimes I love just feeling the water lap my feet, over and over again. It's soothing. I pretend it's God reminding me over and over again that he loves me. 

But more often, I go to the beach because I'm feeling stir-crazy and need to talk to God somewhere besides my junky apartment. It's like using the altar at church--sometimes I need a physical drop-off spot for my burdens, and the same gentle waves that tickle my feet can wash away anger, hurt, fear, guilt, bitterness, stubbornness, unforgiveness, unbelief, unrepentance and whatever else I'm willing to send off into the Mississippi Sound of God's love and forgetfulness.

When I first moved here, I used to end up by the water on accident. I still don't know how it happened, but I'd blank out...and I'd come to and be somewhere that *wasn't* the inside of my apartment. Sometimes I drove myself to Pascagoula, sometimes I walked to the water near my home, but I never remembered getting to my destination. Scary, I know.

Or every once in awhile, being fully aware of what I was doing, I'd take a bottle of very disgusting cheap wine to the beach and drink it at night. I'd sit on the other side of the seawall so nobody could see the drunk crying girl. (If you ever see an empty bottle of $6 white zinfandel washed up on the shore, blame me.)

I guess no matter where I am in life you can't keep me too far from the water. I was born in South Louisiana, and even though my parents didn't own a pirogue or live on swampland, I grew up in a culture defined by the presence of water. You can't have da crawfish without da water, cher.

I was at the beach on a Sunday afternoon in August of 2007, of all days and times, that I realized I was frustrated enough with life to give a victorious Christ-following life "one more try." (I had only one try left in me.)

So when I find my way to the water, I'm usually exhausted and frustrated, because life isn't what *I* want it to be...yet these days I'm thankful, because life isn't what it used to be.

And even when I'm awake at 1 a.m., I'm probably disappointed, but not despairing. I've got a few hang-ups, but I'm not letting them hang me by a noose. I've got more praises to sing than complaints to air, and I'm hopeful--yes, hopeful--the tides will turn in a few areas of my life if I'm patient enough to wait on the one who controls the water.

P.S. Don't even think about fussing at me for being out at 1 a.m. Don't want to hear it.