I was standing on the second-floor porch at the beach house recently, looking out over the ocean on a beautiful spring-like day. I could see for miles and the sun was almost straight overhead as it was just about noon this day. My wife was sitting on the beach just below me in a beach chair wearing a sun hat and sunglasses so she could read her magazine in the bright sunshine. My young kiddos, Leo, Ella, and Jordan were dressed in shorts and long sleeve shirts, barefoot and were playing a wave jumping game as they waded into the ocean about two feet deep or so. Life was beautiful in this moment.
But this beautiful day had started out with a rough morning of sluggishly waking up and getting going, which has been an unfortunate pattern of late with the new chemo drug I have been taking for the past month or so. In fact, I had missed breakfast with the family and was hoping to rally so that I could go sit on the beach with Kate and watch Le, La, and Jay play. But as I stood on the balcony, the ocean breeze in my face, I felt a tear float down my cheek. Everything I saw was perfect at that moment. It was a moment of complete joy and happiness for me, and so I knelt down on my knees, right then and there on the upstairs balcony and said a prayer of thanks, of appreciation and gratitude for the moment and the life the Lord has blessed me with. I have found myself overcome by moments of spontaneous prayer like this more and more each month, and they bring me joy. Little did I know this holy happening was about to gain even more richness.
I stood back up and waved down to the kids on the beach. They all flapped their arms in response. Their joint wave jumping operation was over and they had each headed in different directions for their next playful event. I watched Jordan, the youngest, as she ran across the beach toward a pack of seagulls. I love her little runner’s body; a little pixie like bounce she has as she glides from place to place. Then suddenly she changed her gait, and instead of running, she began to skip. Yes, skip, that old fashioned half walk, half run kind of bounce that we all used to do as kids. It was so beautiful to watch her skip across the sand toward those seagulls. They all flew away and so she stopped and watched them head out to sea.
I looked the opposite way on the beach and I saw Ella bent over picking up seashells, perhaps in search of our much loved “heart shapers” which she and I search for every time we are together at the beach. We have a special box in which we keep all of our precious sought after shells, rocks, stones that have a heart shape to them. My good friend Michael Thompson and his wife, Robin, introduced me to “heart shaper shell hunting” a few years ago and at first, I was skeptical that such shells exist. But years of collections have proven that God does fashion shells in the shape of a heart as gifts for those that look for them.
I watched Ella as she stood up and began to run toward her mother. I stood in awe as she began to skip her way toward Kate’s beach chair. Now Ella’s skip was a bit more robust, almost a gallop, but I could see the smile on her face even from 50 yards away.
Smiling, I wondered how much joy those two little girls must have felt to suddenly burst into a spontaneous skip across the sand. It was beautiful to watch and I asked myself, when was the last time I skipped? I pondered that for a moment and realized that my last skip was holding hands with my oldest daughters at the mall and we all skipped together in the joy of being together Christmas shopping. But unfortunately, there had been no skipping since then in my life. That seemed sad.
I knew what I had to do, what I wanted to do. I went down to the beach and grabbed Ella and Jordan’s hand and said, “Let’s skip together girls.” They happily obliged and we skipped down the beach. I was so happy.
I told Kate about the day’s observations and events and we both agreed that skipping has become a lost art, and maybe so has childlike joy. We concluded that it was nearly impossible to skip when you were in a bad mood.
And so I ask: when was the last time you skipped? What prompted it? I’d bet it has been too long. I invite you to find a place this week, get your joy about you, and go ahead and skip for 30 seconds. I am sure you will smile, laugh and even giggle at yourself and realize we all should add the lost art of skipping and childlike play, joy, and wonder to our adult lives.
Amen and AMEN.