The vast shore

"Mom, it's so quiet at the beach!" says Abi, seashell held tightly to her ear.
"Listen to how quiet it is!" She places the shell next to my ear. I listen intently.
"Yeah, it is quiet there!" I say.

I remember coming home from beach vacations as a child with my seashell prizes. Free mementos from paradise- little treasures by which to remember the vast ocean and sweet breezes. Sometimes the smell of the ocean remained on those shells even years later. I also remember holding them to my ear- I thought they were some magic portal to the sea shore. I was still connected to that beach so far away. Maybe I could talk to someone there if they picked up the other end. But no one was ever there, on that peaceful shore- just the sound of the tide...it was always so quiet there.

So I don't have it in me to tell Abigail that you can't hear the ACTUAL ocean in the shell. I don't know how she came to believe as I did- but it is so precious and innocent that I will let her grow up thinking she can access the vast shore through her little shell. Maybe there will even be a faith lesson in there somewhere.