“Do you want to build a sandcastle? Ooooh look sea shells! Come on let’s build a sandcastle! Daddy, I have sand. Daddy, I’m going to bring the beach home with me…in my shoe!”
My daughter just wanted to play after being in the car way too long, and I was overwhelmed by the history of where I was standing. I have always loved studying WWII, and today my family had the privilege of being able to visit Omaha Beach in Normandy. Driving down through the rustic towns with their old buildings filled with charm, I half expected to see Easy Company (from Band of Brothers) come out from one of the side streets to take on the Nazis. The closer we drove, the more it hit me that almost 70 years ago my countrymen fought over every mile of the terrain to defend freedom.
We arrived at dusk, and it’s a Wednesday night, and only one other family was there. They soon left after we arrived. We had the beach all to ourselves. With the sun setting and no other voices, it was very somber and almost seemed to honor the grave things that had taken place on the 4 mile stretch of beach. If I had been there without my children, I would have walked on the beach, sat on the giant steps and contemplated all the history. Instead, my attempts to do all that were thwarted while all my daughter could think about was that she was at the beach and she didn’t have a shovel. At first I tried to quiet her and even tried to explain the great sacrifice that had taken place…but quickly remembered that she is five. Five-year-olds do not really care about historic battles that happened seventy-some years ago.
Then it hit me: I think if I were one of the men that had laid everything on the line that June morning in 1944, I could only hope that a five year old could one day just play on the beach. If I had sacrificed that much in the name of freedom, I would want the innocent to not have to worry themselves with anything except sandcastle construction and the amazing colors of sea shells!
Not to over spiritualize it, but it made me think about my Heavenly Father and the verse in Mathew 6: 34, “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Jesus laid it all on the line at calvary. He sacrificed everything He had so we could have freedom. And I think He feels the same way as the WWII D-Day soldiers might about us in our beach-of-a-life. Being in the middle of a season that is filled with so much ambiguity, I needed to be reminded to worry less about my tomorrows and rather focus more on what to do with all this beautiful sand I am on today. No wonder Jesus said we must have child like faith (Luke 18:17) to be in the Kingdom of God. So yet another lesson I learned from my 5 year old.