Let me tell you a story. The story of a girl who dreamed big and lived small. Whose broken heart was a little worse for the wear. But she didn’t let that stop her from believing that somewhere in this life there would be healing.
Maybe you believe in coincidences. In Divine circumstances. Or maybe you think we as humans just like to see patterns where there are none.
I believe in noticing things that call our hearts towards them. And a Creator who cares enough to let us discover those things in the right moments.
Let’s begin.
It was a cold, rainy day in December. The way here was fairly easy to navigate. Being that it was early on a Sunday morning most of the streets were empty. Occasionally I spotted someone out for a run. All bundled up from the cold.
I hopped out of the Uber and began walking toward my destination. It didn’t take long to spot. A sea is no small thing.
I found the nearest access point and calmly walked out onto the sand. I felt my heart pounding, telling me to run towards the ocean and dip my toes in the water as fast as I can!
But it was the middle of December. And I was wearing a sweater, black jeans, and my black boots. Instead, I walked over to a concrete structure stretching out over water and rocks. I walked to the end and looked around me. Out at the Mediterranean Sea. A place I had long read about in my Bible and seen on TV. But dared not dream of ever making it here. I looked back at the land. Barcelona taking form behind me.
I read through the graffiti on the rocks in the sea below. It occurred to me that there were two ways to get out there. One would be in the case of an unusually low tide. The other by swimming out from shore. Did everyone that lived by the Mediterranean enjoy a confidence in swimming in the sea? If so, I wished I had grown up with that same confidence.
But I was only here for a moment. A quick escape to this so familiar yet so far away place before my midday flight.
I walked back toward the shore. Finding a place where the cement was low enough for me to slip off my boots and feel the sand.
Off came my black boots and black socks.
And that’s when I saw it. ‘Cataluña’. Next to its coordinates, the name of the place was written. I hadn’t ever noticed the writing inside my boots. Until I sat here reading it in the place these boots were named for.
And I began to think about all of the things that brought me here, to this moment. Alone on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Confident enough in my Spanish to navigate through Spain entirely by myself. Wearing a pair of boots that seemed to know this moment would come long before I did.
Life didn’t feel perfect. My heart was still broken. My future was still unknown. I would leave Europe and the Sea on this very day. Going back to the life I had found it necessary to escape from.
It felt rather appropriate that my first and only trip to the Mediterranean would take place on a somber day in December and not in the middle of summer. It meant solitude instead of crowds of tourists. It meant that as I walked the stretch of beach in front of me I could voice out loud my heartbreak, my disappointment, and all the chaotic motion in my soul. I spoke to God as I walked the shore of Barcelona that day. Spoke to Him as though he were there on that shore. Hovering just above the water. Close enough to see the tears run down my cheeks and hear the hurt that cracked my voice now and then. He gave me this beach today. On a day when most would have looked for somewhere else to have their morning coffee. Me and God were there, talking on a beach in Spain.
I could tell you of the time I almost moved to this region of Spain two years prior. Or of the plans I had made of coming here under far different circumstances. I could tell you a handful of stories that make me being here on this beach, this very day, a moment of significance. But perhaps what matters most isn’t all the things that got me here. Perhaps it doesn’t matter that my boots have the coordinates of this place stamped into their inner fabric. Perhaps what really matters is that being here is being alone with God. It is speaking to him across the world from home and yet feeling right at home because I know he is here with me.
It’s writing this story now- several years later- and knowing that those moments with God before getting on the plane home will forever be etched in my mind. A part of my story. It’s remembering the broken, mangled heart that was able to beat in my chest that day. That was able to rejoice in the simple pleaser of toes in the sand and the sound of waves ebbing and flowing. And the knowing that my purpose, like this place, would follow me back home. But now I would return knowing that I had seen the promised land. That the coordinates placed under my feet since long ago were now I place that I had been.
And now they are a reminder that dreaming big isn’t a foolish thing to do. Dreaming big is hoping that God will make the right dreams come true.
It’s not letting disappointments, heartbreaks, or low probabilities stop me from believing in things bigger than I can control.
A lot of things are different now than they were that day on the shore. But more of them are the same, I think. The ocean continues to be a place where God’s presence feels exceptionally close. As I wrote these words I’m wearing the very same boots. And I know that if I unzip them I’ll see the same word and the same coordinates. My heart isn’t broken today. But it is a little disappointed and very unsure of when all the ‘no’s’ might finally turn to ‘yeses’. And while my body sits in a coffee shop in Oaxaca, in my mind I am on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s a cold, rainy day. And my black boots say Cataluña. I won’t take them off today. But I will talk to God. And he’ll give me the words to help tell the story of a girl who dreamed big and lived small. And remind her that those two things together are perfectly okay.
