God, The Sea, and Me

I returned home from my six days of retreat late Thursday morning. The hardest and in some ways the most painful part of retreat is re~entry into the world. What I have come to realize about why it is so difficult is on the surface I truly enjoy the rest and relaxation that these days bring, but it goes deeper than this. What I have come to realize is that with every retreat I make, some part of me changes; God does a great deal of work on me in those days. While I may have changed in some ways, the world hasn't. To the vast majority of people who know that I go on retreat, that week is simply a week away. Explaining the deeper reasons don't seem to mean anything so I don't try to explain.
None of this really matters to me, because these six days that I choose to spend in silence each year are for me, and I see them as a gift from God.
I have made my days of retreat in the same place for the last 4 years. I have always made a directed retreat and have had the same spiritual director each time. This year I decided to make the retreat privately without my director. I really just wanted my time with our Lord to be uninterrupted (except for Mass and meals). I brought along my Bible, my journal and a bit of spiritual reading, which I will talk about in a separate post at some point.
Our Lord never disappoints me. If I do my prayerful best to open myself to Him, He floods my soul with countless graces.
Usually there is one significant "gift" I return home with; this year it was the sea itself. No, I didn't bottle the Atlantic and haul it back with me, but the sea seemed to take a hold of me and get into the depths of my soul like it never has before. I came home feeling like I wanted to reflect more on it and its beauty as one of God's most powerful creations. I thought about simply writing a few posts about it here, but that didn't seem like enough; I felt the need for something that could be ongoing, and it needed a place of its own.
So here is what I have done. I couldn't find exactly how to create new or separate pages in Blogger, so I went over to Wordpress and created a separate blog. What I will do is give you the link in this post, but it will also be listed at the top of my sidebar under Posts That May Be of Interest(I may change that title) so that you can check in with it whenever you need some seaside tranquility.
This new blog is simply a place, almost a journal of sorts, where I will share my reflections on the sea and how God seems to speak through it. The blogs title is The Voice of the Lord Is On The Waters. You can read about where the title comes from by clicking the About tab on the blog.
I am not sure how often I will post there. Right now there are 2 reflections written there. I also plan to put a photo gallery of the pictures I took. Although you will see those here tomorrow as a slide show in my Sunday Meditations post.
God's gift of the sea is to big to keep to one's self. I look forward to sharing it with any and all who find themselves on my new little cyber~haven.