The mist swam above the sea, carrying in each drop the fragrance of wood smoke and winter.

I played a slow game with the tide, chasing it out, standing on the concrete slabs as it licked around them. Chasing it further out as it grew more shy. I reached the yellow pole, my hands felt its barnacles and rust. I slung my arm around it like I would an old friend or a new friend. And we stood, me and the barnacley pole and I chatted with my creator- talking into the mist.

I told him of my fears, my hopes, my feelings that I don't deserve his grace and favor as much as he lavishes them on me, but I said it with fear that he could just withdraw it all at anytime.

I know that my inheritance is safe in him, and that I am living already in eternal life, but I also know that I signed up for hardship, pain and persecution- to share the cross, and yeah there is a part of me (a big part) that hopes this will never come.

What if all that I love and hold dear other than God was taken from me. Sometimes I wonder if I try not to love and hold things dear.