The Ocean’s Sermon
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.” —Isaiah 43:2
Most evenings, our entire family gathers around the dining table on our deck in Hawaii while the trade winds move softly through the trees. From where we sit, we can see the ocean stretching out beyond the houses, blue and endless.
Quite literally a million-dollar view.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”— Psalm 19:1
The table itself is nothing remarkable. I found it on Facebook Marketplace for $300. It has a few scratches and is warped from rain accidentally getting wet during the “winter” rainy season. We have a hodgepodge of chairs around it, and all the chair legs wobble slightly.
But from that little table, we can see the Pacific.
During the spring, summer, and fall, we keep the table outside on the deck. Dinner happens with salty air drifting through the evening and trade winds brushing past our shoulders. Plates clatter, children argue over the last piece of homemade bread, drinks spill, stories from the day are shared, and the ocean stretches quietly before us as if it has all the time in the world.
Sometimes, in the middle of those ordinary dinners, I stop and look out toward the water and feel a quiet realization settle in my chest.
The Lord has been using the ocean to shepherd our souls for years.
Scripture reminds us that creation is never merely scenery. The psalmist writes,
“The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).
Jesus once told the Pharisees that if people refused to praise Him, even the rocks would cry out. And the Psalms go further still, inviting all of creation into worship:
“Let the sea roar, and all that fills it…
let the rivers clap their hands.” — Psalm 98:7–8
The ocean does not simply exist.
It declares.
Yet, the ocean did not begin for me here in Hawaii.
Sixteen years ago, early in our marriage, we lived in North Carolina during my husband’s first deployment. In those long, uncertain months, many spouses found themselves drawn to the Atlantic shoreline at Wrightsville Beach. Something about the horizon and the steady rhythm of the waves gave our anxious hearts room to breathe.
Later, when the soldiers returned home, retreats for couples were often held along that same stretch of sand. Marriages worn thin by distance and time found quiet space to begin healing again beside the water. We loved the place so much that we returned whenever we could. The little rental house we shared with friends was nearly 150 miles away, but the drive never felt too long.
The ocean has a way of convincing you that the journey is worth it.
Years later, the military moved us again—this time to Destin, Florida.
I had never visited Destin before we arrived. The move was harder than I expected. North Carolina had been home for six years, and leaving the people and place we loved felt like tearing up roots. But the Lord, in His quiet mercy, placed the ocean directly across the street from our apartment.
I did not yet realize how much I would need it.
Soon after settling in Florida, we had four children under the age of eight. The beach quickly became our escape valve. When little bodies were restless and overstimulated, sand and water could accomplish what no lecture or quiet activity ever could.
We went often.
Looking back now, I see something I did not recognize at the time.
Psalm 23 says the Shepherd “leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”
I believed I was bringing my children to the ocean so they could run and burn off energy. But the Shepherd was leading all of us there to be restored.
One evening during a very hard deployment, I had not heard from my husband in several days. I made the mistake of reading the news, and anxiety began its familiar climb up into my chest. Dinner was finished, but the children (8, 4, 3, and 9 months) were restless and unsettled, and my own heart was no calmer than theirs.
Normally, I would have walked to the beach from our house. But that night I felt an unusual sense of urgency. Instead of walking, I loaded all four children into the car and drove.
I did not know why.
The sun was beginning to sink when we arrived, and the familiar cotton candy sky was stretching wide over the Gulf. Then, slowly, two rainbows appeared—one arching boldly across the sky with another faintly above it.
The children ran toward the shoreline, delighted by the colors, while I stood still watching the sky.
Something in my chest loosened as the waves moved in and out, their steady rhythm quieting something deep within me.
For a few silent minutes, everything felt strangely calm.
If we had walked, we would have missed the double rainbow.
We stayed until the colors began to fade, brushed sand from our feet, climbed back into the car, and headed home for baths and bedtime.
My phone rang before we even left the parking lot.
My husband.
Only later did I learn what had happened that day overseas.
His team had entered an area with one way in and one way out. After they arrived, ISIS remotely activated an explosive device that had been lying dormant along the road—the device would have struck their convoy when they left. Instead, another team drove in to assist and unknowingly triggered the device first.
Four soldiers were killed.
The weight of that reality settled on me slowly in the days and years that followed—every November, the relief that my husband is alive mingles with grief for those no longer with us.
Military life often carries these quiet tensions: gratitude and sorrow enduring side by side.
When I think back to that evening, I still remember the double rainbow stretching over the water.
In Scripture, the rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant mercy. I do not pretend to understand His mercies or why some families receive different phone calls than others.
But I do know that on that evening, before I knew anything about what had happened overseas, the Lord met me beside the water and steadied my heart.
Later, we moved to another home in Florida, near a small park along the bay side of Destin. By then, the children were older, and evenings often ended with bike rides to the water. My husband was away frequently on training trips, and those sunset rides became a necessary rhythm for all of us.
The summer sunsets on the bay were breathtaking. The children ran along the shoreline while I watched the water turn gold, pink, purple, and blue beneath the fading light. Those cotton candy skies are permanently etched in my memory.
Slowly, something else was changing in me, too. The evening glass of wine I had come to rely on began to fade away. The water itself was calming something deeper in my soul. Perhaps that should not have surprised me.
When God spoke to Job about His power, He pointed directly to the sea:
“Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth…
When I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
Here is where your proud waves halt?’” — Job 38:8–11
The ocean looks wild and uncontrollable, yet every wave stops exactly where God appoints.
Motherhood, especially during military life, often feels chaotic—deployments, uncertainty, raising children through long stretches of absence.
But the ocean confidently preaches a sermon every day:
Even chaos has boundaries when God is sovereign.
The waves roar.
But they stop.
Eventually, the military carried us even farther—to Hawaii.
The first time I drove toward Oahu’s North Shore, I cried. The ocean stretched endlessly before us while mountains rose beside the road. I have always loved the ocean. My husband has always loved the mountains. Seeing both together felt like a gentle kiss from God.
Over the years, the Lord has used three different oceans to shepherd my heart—first the Atlantic during the long early deployments, then the quiet waters of the Gulf while we were raising young children and walking through some of our hardest seasons, and now the vast Pacific as we begin to look back and see more clearly the life He has been leading us through all along.
Eventually, we found the little house we now live in. Built in the 1950s with vaulted ceilings, it holds our family of seven more snugly than any of our previous homes.
But the view from the deck made every compromise worth it.
From our $300 dining room table, we can see the ocean.
And often, when the days are loud and the children are finally settled for quiet time, I find myself seated at the outdoor table gazing upon the water as it rolls in the distance.
We are nearing retirement from military life, and my husband and I often wonder where we will finally settle. Hawaii has been a beautiful place to raise our family for a time, but we also think about the years ahead. One day, our children will build their own lives, and we want it to be easy for them to come home. Living on an island makes us wonder if distance and cost might make those visits harder than we hope.
But each time we imagine leaving the ocean entirely, our hearts hesitate.
It has been present in too many chapters of our lives.
Sometimes I wonder if the ocean was not only a beautiful place to live, but also a quiet, miraculous kindness from God—placed in the very seasons when my soul needed it most.
Scripture often uses the sea as a picture of power and chaos—something far beyond human control. Yet the Bible reminds us again and again that even the sea answers to its Creator. When Jesus stood in the middle of a storm and rebuked the wind and waves, the disciples asked in awe,
“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
The ocean that steadies my heart and assures my family is the same ocean that falls silent and still at His command.
Psalm 77 says of the Lord,
“Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.”
So often in military life, I could not see what God was doing. His footsteps were invisible to me. But standing before the ocean reminds me that the God who leads His people through deep waters has never once lost control of them.
Perhaps that is why the ocean comforts me so deeply. It reminds me that the God who governs the tides is also governing my life.
A weary mother stands before the sea and learns a quiet sermon from the repetitive waves:
