Pain in Paradise and the Vast Love of God
February 23, 2026
It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and Mr. Romantic, as they call him, scheduled a surprise trip for a precious family getaway in Puerto Rico. As soon as we got off the plane, that familiar smell of the salty Atlantic Ocean filled my chest. Even in another territory, miles from Ft. Lauderdale, I was home. I always joked with my mother—who is chilly below 80 degrees—that coming home to visit brings with it a warm, suffocating blanket that wraps around you the moment you step off the plane in South Florida.
I often found it torturous and disgusting… but as I’ve grown in gratitude and my skin has thinned with age, I now find that warm, wet blanket familiar and comforting. Yet in the Caribbean in February, that familiar salty air was anything but suffocating. It was crisp, cool, and cleansing: a refreshment to my soul. Deeply breathing in that cool, salty air drew me into the culture, the pace, the relaxation, the lighthearted enjoyment of being together with no agenda, no plans, no responsibility—only rest.
I had a bit of congestion before landing in Puerto Rico, but after a few Airborne packets and a full day in the Caribbean air, I was as good as new. I could breathe easy. Being near the ocean will always be especially nurturing to my soul, but this time was particularly special. The marriage of mountain and ocean is truly one of the most beautiful things to behold on this earth. Each turn more beautiful than the last: lush and green and full of life.
As we often do on vacation, we opted for adventure. On our very brief trip to paradise, we took a tumultuous hike up Mt. Toro, where we slipped and slid up the most ridiculous terrain in the wrong pair of shoes. I was often ankle-deep in wet orange clay, praying my shoe would find its way out, or swinging from uncertain branches to leap to the next ledge of unknown ground.
Were the rocks steady? We would find out.
Was the branch floating or sturdy? Let’s step and—oops—find out.
Unfortunately, we didn’t even make it to the peak, because sunset was coming, and my patient husband knew I was slowing down, guaranteeing we wouldn’t make it down before darkness covered the island. Though somewhat disappointing, we shook it off and celebrated the life lesson that sometimes, the journey isn’t always beautiful at the end on this side of heaven.
Sometimes, the journey is simply where you learn. Sometimes it is just a long, wet, slippery, rocky, muddy, difficult lesson. Cynical? Maybe. True? Absolutely.
We did enjoy a day of ease after the hike and laid down most of the day—whether on a boat or in a bed—and it was beautiful… just the rest we needed. But on our last day in paradise, we ventured out for a short sunrise hike, despite the low visibility offered to us at 5 a.m. that morning. “It’s a short, easy walk” to the beach, we were told. But unbeknownst to us, if you get off course even a little, you end up on cliffs and in jungle with seemingly no path forward.
After about an hour or so of wandering barefoot on shards of glass we’ll call “pebbles,” with no soft beach in sight, my heart began to grumble. Every step reminded me I had chosen the wrong shoes for the wrong terrain. And as always, the age-old temptation crept in: What is there to do but blame?
Inwardly, I began to blame my patient husband for dragging me out so far onto the painful rocks. The arches of my feet were aching and sore. We had already done a difficult hike. This was supposed to be short and easy! The more we walked, the more they hurt, and yet Mr. Faithful pressed on, promising we were near the good spot, smiling all the way. I knew what he knew but refused to acknowledge: that he had no idea how soon soft sand would be found. And even worse than the terrain was the fact that my nearly perfect partner consistently moved faster and easier, saying he “enjoyed” the feeling of exfoliation under his ogre feet, constantly running ahead and then waiting on me as I suffered.
He kindly—not patronizingly, as I suspected at the time—encouraged me onward.
Finally, we made our way to a break in the jungle and tried to climb up a cliff to get back on the path. Begrudgingly, wearing my loose rubber sandals, I attempted to scale the tiny mountain. As I always do—being the youngest and only female in my family—I pretended to be confident, loving the challenge, smiling through it, because I was up for anything and, certainly, just as capable as my male counterpart. But a few slips on my aching feet, and suddenly my optimism was traded for frustration, which shortly morphed into frustration’s ugly cousin: anger. At whom? You may ask. Why, of course, Mike.
Every crumbling rock under my raw fingers exposed what was really surfacing in me. Our “relaxing stroll” to the “very near” beach had become an unwanted second “adventure” hike, promising only pain and frustration.
Defeated, we made the decision to climb down and return the way we came. The cliff and the rocks had won. I constantly leaned over the cliffs not to see beauty, but difficulty. I thought to myself, “This is paradise,” and yet, “it is uninhabitable.” How can those two juxtaposing thoughts be the only reality we can find on this earth? Of course it made me long for heaven, where there will be no strife or thorn… where we will traipse over rocks and bound between islands, enjoying the fullness of their majesty without pain or difficulty.
Later that morning, after my nervous system relaxed a bit and the raw ache in the arches of my feet was forgotten, I spent some time in wonder, gazing over the deep blue. I saw the same rocks that conquered me on the cliffs beneath the crystal-clear sea. I saw that they continued down and down, as I remembered the vastness of the deep. Thousands of miles down, across, east and west, north and south… my mind cannot fathom the scope of mountain ranges scaling the ocean floor.
Even one tiny boulder—the sheer roughness of its texture, the weight of the crashing waves, the barnacles underfoot, the saw grass cutting me as we walked—the elements were more than I could handle. I imagined myself on one of those reality TV shows, day two weeping and caving as nature overtook me. Some consider me tough, but the truth comes out when discomfort and pain I have chosen to endure take over. The stupidity of choosing this discomfort when a perfectly tempered pool and a comfortable lounge chair await me just a mile away—it just gets to me after a while. But I digress.
As I gaze over the deep, I am struck by the comparison the psalmist makes of the deep and vast love of our Heavenly Father toward us. Its strength, its depth, its width. No one has ever known how much the Father actually loves us. I looked at my husband and said, “God loves you that much. As wide and as far as this ocean spans, God loves you that much.”
How can that be true? Why? Why does God care for us, when we are so small? We can give Him nothing. I bring Him nothing. He has it all, and I offer nothing back to Him. Yet He loves me. He loves me endlessly. Even one wave from the ocean can knock me off my feet or force me under and overtake me. And yet millions of waves cover the earth. That is the amount of love He has lavished on us. Can you believe it? I can hardly bear it. And His heart pours out that kind of love for every one of His children who are still far off.
Jesus, this is my mission.
I want to tell everyone of the deep, wide, vast, unbelievably consuming love of their Heavenly Father. Help me tell them. Show me how. Alert my eyes to the moments in my day when I can write this down, say it out loud. With every breath I have left that You have given me, I will use it to share Your love. I cry as Paul cried, that you, dear reader, would know how deep and how wide is the great love of God. I asked my Jesus, “How much do You love me?” And He stretched out His arms and died.
The ocean feels vast until you stand before the cross. Those rocks that cut my feet felt unbearable, until I remembered the wounds in His. And here is the question I can’t shake:
If His love is that deep, that wide…
If millions of waves cannot measure it…
Why do we grumble on the rocks? Why do we doubt when the path is unclear?
This week, when the terrain turns sharp beneath your aching feet, when your walk transforms from “short and easy” to impossibly difficult and unknown… pause.
Remember the ocean, and know His love for you is more than that.
