I walk down the paved road that runs parallel to the shore, then cross over the bridge where the men wait over crab nets and talk about how long they’ve been there and how they’ve yet to catch one.

I step onto the beach alone, and the sun is gloriously bright and warm, the sky pure blue and I exhale, Oh my God, this is breathtaking.

I cannot stop snapping photos on my phone of the shells and the rocks, the water and sky. My mind grows more alive with the deep quiet through waves’ roar and grasses’ subtle shift in brown and green against painted sky, marked with cloud streaks.

Everywhere I look, I see contrasts of the small and large.

At my feet are footprints — like fingers holding up “three,” and I imagine the sandpipers that might have left them, rushing along as they barely touched down. My running-walking shoes stamp big ruts in the dryish sand and when I see them laid out behind me, I can’t help but wonder of impact, legacy, as each forward step I make is cast into tan relief at my back.

In the sand, prints of all kinds crisscross. Human bare feet, dog pads, bird claws. The sun shines bright on them and so each is starkly unique while it mingles into a crazy sand quilt.

At my right, the ocean rushes deep and wide. Holes fill. Sand mounds wash flat. After the crash of waves, there are no marks, but the remnants of what waves carry.

I feel the roaring rattle in my belly while granules of sand flatten-crunch under foot.

I am small. I am important.

I am temporary. My life is significant.

I am treasured as unique. My life is hidden fully in God.

And now I can’t help myself. I am singing:

Ah, Lord God, thou hast made the heavens and the earth by thy great power.
Ah, Lord God, though hast made the heavens and the earth by thine outstretched arm.

He is all-powerful. He is stunning, and what he’s made is evidence of this indescribable beauty.

I pick up the next lines of the song as I lay feet in sand, and they seem a sudden shift:

Nothing is too difficult for thee, Nothing is too difficult for thee.
Great and mighty God, great in counsel and mighty in deed,
Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing, nothing is too difficult for thee.

I walk this space with my God, this path of both-and.

Unfathomably vast Lord and King, yet the one who abides within.
Crafter of all heaven and earth, yet the one who sees and cares for me and moves in the small details of my life.

I am walking this middle path between the marks I leave and marks of him — everywhere.

In the shadow of sea and sky, all I really know is this great God and that I am his.

Joining up today with the last Concrete Words (for a while) at Amber Haines’ The Runamuck, though the dear Tanya Marlow will continue hosting us at her place. Whether on designated Mondays or not, I will keep writing about the power of everyday things we can touch, hold and see to teach us about what we cannot. Today’s writing began with the prompt: PATH.

And another note: Most lovely subscribing friends, please excuse the embarrassing photo you may have received from me under the guise of a post in your inbox last night. I am without internet on my home computer right now and so what you saw was the fruit of my dear hubby’s work to get his iPad working for me for the creation of today’s post. He used a photo he’d taken for our amusement at the sportsman’s show (of some unique purses) as a test, and somehow it was sent as a post. There was no deeper meaning there. I feel like I just walked around all evening with my skirt tucked into my nylons. I’m glad you’re my friends, though, or that could be really humiliating.