Life's a beach

I used to think if you were in the state of grace and had toilet paper, you were pretty much set. I'm older now, and a little bit wiser...........you don't need the toilet paper. I used to read a lot........now I read the dictionary(very short stories). I was reading the chapter on B's when I found something interesting. The Oxford American Dictionary defines beach as " the shore between high and low water mark, covered with sand or waterworn pebbles". That got me to thinking about St. Therese of Lisieux. She died when she was twenty four years young. She was a cloistered nun. She was a novice, a rookie. She never did anything earth shattering. She was insignificant, nobody, little. The "little flower" figured it out. I'm never leaving this convent, and I gotta get to Heaven, so what do I do. Bingo!!!! I'll offer up everything to God. Every joy, sorrow, pain, pleasure, insult , and injury. Every act of kindness and sacrifice I will give to Him. This little, insignificant, waterworn pebble, tossed about between those high and low water marks we have all experienced, offered every little grain of sand of her "little life", and formed a small but exquisite beach. The ocean of grace(our Blessed Lord) would at times wash over her, giving her refreshment, and at other times withdraw, leaving her thirsting. She is a canonized saint,yet in the grand scheme of things, she is still tiny.But the universe is found in a grain of sand, is it not? The next time someone tailgates, insults, belittles, or does any one of the hundreds of daily little things that just get your goat. Offer it up. Take those little grains of Grace and start building your beach. Life's a beach; short or long. Awash or thirsting.......the ocean's always there, right beside you. Let's hope; all of us; that when we come to the end of our own little stretch of sand, we can look back and see it shining bright in the Son. pax tecum!