Who Will Fill the Hole?

By Amber O’Brien    

I should have used my big girl voice

I should have said, “Will you please fill the hole?” as the family

Packed up their plastic toys and shovels.

For I knew what they did not; for  

A hole left open can lead to heartache.

Years before a woman on a nearby shore stumbled in the dark

And she fell into a neglected hole;

She couldn’t climb out and she soon fell asleep.

Early the next morning a sand -cleaning machine

 Pushed the sand over her and

She. Was. Buried. Alive.

The reporter urged the viewers “to please fill in the holes”

After scooping sand and sculpting sandcastles.

But, there are some gaps we cannot fill up

On. Our. Own.

I thought of my own regrets:

As a mother. As a friend.

A sister, daughter, wife

Would my regrets ever end?

So many pits, so many pangs of regret

How many people have fallen into the holes that I’ve continually dug

With clenched fists of selfish pride and fear?

 Or on the other hand,

How many people have hurt me and bore huge holes in my own heart?

 But I worsened my wounds with unforgiveness and

 Allowed the gaping holes to fester from self-pity.

 This huge hole left in the sand in front of me

represented all my failures and  

I sat anxiously in my beach chair pondering what to do.

I didn’t have a shovel,

Or the strength…………… for I now finally comprehended that

All these holes together form a Grand Canyon sized chasm that separates

me from holy heaven.

Who will fill the hole?

Downhearted and distressed,

I grievously sat gazing at the ginormous gulf

Paralyzed with despair.

Who Can fill the hole?

Then a lifeguard

Wearing a blood-red tank top

With a white cross sealed across his chest

Climbed down from his high white stand,

Kneeled in the sand and

With his open bare hands,

He gently and carefully pushed the sand from the rough edges

And Filled. In. The. Hole.

Above all, Love each other deeply, because Love covers a multitude of sins.

I Peter 4:8