Was my stubborn reply to the insistence of my mother and brother and other family members. “There’s too much fog and smog. And we’re just a little to far away. And not high enough up.”
There was an unusual amount of fog. That much was true. And there was the usual amount of smog. Also true. But we were indeed close enough and high enough up—my insistence that we were too low and distant was untrue.
I just couldn’t see it. I wouldn’t see it. The ocean was indeed there, whether I accepted it or not.
Why wouldn’t I see the ocean? Why wouldn’t I believe that it was water I was seeing, even though that’s what I truly longed to see? Why did I have to make it only fog and smog?
I suppose it’s true that we only see what we allow ourselves to see,.
And how often do I miss God, or hope, or joy, or holiness, or faithfulness, or anything else good that I long to see? How often do I belittle my vision to merely fog and smog?
The next morning, the sky was much clearer, and as I looked out from the hill in the bare light of dawn, I saw that they had been right. I beheld the expanse of the ocean—which had been there all along—stretching farther than my eyes could see.
