{"id":19,"date":"2012-06-01T11:47:31","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T11:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/?p=19"},"modified":"2019-01-15T00:54:44","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T00:54:44","slug":"by-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/?p=19","title":{"rendered":"By the Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dear Friends,<\/p>\n

Last weekend, I experienced one of the most joyful times of my life. We introduced our baby grandson, Coby, to the ocean for the first time. He is 13  months old, and Mack and I had given him a sand and water table (sometimes known in the Kindergarten world as the \u201cMUD\u201d table!) for his birthday. He loves it, so, we had a hint that he was going to really love the real thing!<\/p>\n

His mom had slathered him with sunscreen, dressed him in a sun resistant, long sleeved surfer shirt (size 1Toddler-does it get any cuter than that?), and put a floppy fisherman\u2019s hat on that sweet little red head of his. He delighted in the texture of the sand and ran toward the shallow waves at the shoreline.<\/p>\n

Since Mack and I are both lovers of salt water and sand, we were particularly thrilled with this turn of events! We\u2019re pretty sure that we would still like the baby even if he didn\u2019t love the beach, but….thankfully, we didn\u2019t have to make that decision!<\/p>\n

While Coby\u2019s parents surfed the waves and enjoyed some rare responsibility-free time, Mack and I walked up and down the beach with our precious little boy. Just as we had dreamed we would do, we slowed down to the baby\u2019s pace, stopping every time he stopped, marveling at the miracle of a seashell through the eyes of a little guy seeing it for the first time, and watched as the baby charmed the ladies on the beach.<\/p>\n

As he toddled along the shore, with his newly found walking skill, he would reach up to steady himself with either my hand or Mack\u2019s (he was working both grandparents equally well!).  Of course, Mack and I were both at the ready every time. Baby Coby would reach toward one of us, and immediately, there we were. When he started to stumble, or when he became tired, he didn\u2019t have to beg, he didn\u2019t have to whine, or even wait a second to be shored up. He simply reached out his little hand, and we were there to help him – and happy (ecstatic!) to do so.<\/p>\n

As we shared this most precious of afternoons with this little fellow, I realized that this is exactly how our Lord interacts with us. We are never alone, never left to stumble or fall. All we have to do is reach out – just the tiniest little bit, and there He is, hand lovingly extended, ready to guide us along the path.<\/p>\n

Wishing for you, the peace of finding His hand right there.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Friends, Last weekend, I experienced one of the most joyful times of my life. We introduced our baby grandson, Coby, to the ocean for the first time. He is 13  months old, and Mack and I had given him a sand and water table (sometimes known in the Kindergarten<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,10,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1161,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/1161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}