Originally Posted on Feb. 13, 2021

After my run on Friday morning, I rushed back to my hotel room to get ready for my next adventure: the beach. After braiding my hair, slipping on my cheetah swimsuit, and grabbing my backpack, I headed out. After arriving, I felt as though I were a dot-sized person in a puzzle. I had seen stock photos of destinations that look like paradise, but I had doubts regarding their reality. The Persian Gulf is that paradise.

Lying on the lawn chair, I saw the ocean before me. White-and-red sail boats speckled the ocean front. Little birds greeted me on shore. In the distance to my right and left were skyscrapers; I could see my home-away-from-home Intercontinental Hotel standing among them. Rather than the usual city buzz of cars and horn-honking, I heard only waves, wind, and bird chirps.

Without a cloud in sight, the sun shone boldly on the ocean. As I walked barefoot to the water, I paused to look down at my white-painted toes in the sand. The grit of the sand reminded me of summer days at Clear Creek Lake—which was the view from my bedroom window for 18 years.

My family and I lived in a brick house that was about 75 yards from the lake, bridge, and fish house, where Jacy and Papa stayed sunup to sundown. I sometimes popped in the fish house to play with the earthworms after taking a break from swimming. Jacy was the fisherman. I was the swimmer. After a day at the lake, I’d have to leave my sandy flip flops on the front porch. The next day, I’d put my clean feet back into the flip flops with the leftover sand—and head back out to the lake.

Over 7,000 miles from home, the grit of the sand feels the same. It doesn’t look the same—the sand of the Persian Gulf is white, instead of the brown to brownish black sand of Oklahoma lakes. But it feels the same. That feeling must be universal—the feeling of standing on shore with the ocean before your eyes and the sand between your toes.

“How precious are your thoughts about me, O God; they cannot be numbered. I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand…” - Psalms 139:17-18