My friend Jim and I stayed at the New Jersey Shore for much of the winter he had brain cancer. Friends had generously given us their oceanside condo, and in between cancer treatments and visits to Jim’s mother, we made the Shore our home.
Jim had always loved being at the Shore. He saw God’s grandeur in the vastness of the ocean and God’s power in the roaring waves. “Look how big our God is,” he would say.
I saw it, too, but I don’t think as manifestly as Jim.
Until that December, when for five straight days, the ocean was completely calm, a sea of glass stretching out to the horizon. Every day, we marveled at the sight of the ocean without waves.
To me, it was miraculous and a sign.
Every day that week, I pondered God’s power in the undisturbed water meeting blue sky at the horizon—a portrait in blue.
On the fifth day, as I walked along the shoreline, stepping on the remnants of seashells that the surf had deposited there, I heard God speak to me.
This is how you are to live. Leave everything that is sharp and broken at the edge and move out into the calm of the ocean. Live in the calm.
That memory came back to me the other day when a friend recounted her amazement at being at the ocean. She had just come back from a week’s stay at the Jersey Shore and was in awe of the sight of water stretching out forever and the unrelenting waves.
It was the reminder I needed at that moment because my mother had just been released from hospital.
During her hospital stay and its aftermath, I have been feeling like the tumultuous ocean. Being in the emergency room took me back to the hours I spent in a similar room when Jim got sick.
The worst day of my mother’s hospitalization was the one where she clutched at her throat all day, clearly in distress, and we wondered if she would survive. She did, and her doctor decided not to do any more tests. To what end? She is ninety-three.
We took her home the following day, and she is regaining her strength. Like Jim, my mother hates going to the hospital where she has so little control over what happens to her.
She is in God’s hands, I have repeatedly reminded myself since the day the ambulance came, in the same way I used to say Jim was in God’s hands.
I don’t know what God is doing with my mother, but I am clear that God is inviting me to let go and to trust that my mother is in God’s hands.
God invites me to live in the calm, beyond the raging emotions, the drama of relationship dynamics and my own fears of being vulnerable. God reminds me that I will find peace in the calm.
Let go, God says to me. Live in the calm.
Madeline Bialecki 
I like being reminded of the vastness of God and God’s riches. I get into trouble when I make God too small. Thank you, Madeline!
Jim used to tell the story of the people whose coats were too small. It was my favorite of his sermons. Do you know it?
Needed to reread this after not sleeping, in the longest lockdown, so much to do, children, elderly mother, my sisters estate… thank you ♥️
Thank you for pulling this up. It was from two years ago, and my mom had several more hospitalizations and then died in June 2021. I want to re-read everything I have written, and looking at this reminds me what a good idea that is. Thanks.