I lost my glasses in the ocean yesterday.

I lost my glasses in the ocean yesterday.

Not misplaced… not somewhere in a bag… I mean gone. Resting on the bottom of the ocean floor.

I was so excited to jump in with a snorkeling mask that I completely forgot I was still wearing them. The second I hit the water, the mask flew off my head. I caught it, got it back on, and in that moment I realized something was wrong. Everything was blurry. That sinking feeling hit instantly… my glasses were gone.

We were in deep water.

For a split second, I felt it rise in me… that surge of panic. How am I going to function? How am I going to drive when we get home? How is this not going to mess up the rest of the trip?

And then just as fast as it came, something steadied me. God wasn’t surprised by this.
Not even a little.

While I was treading water trying to process what I had just lost, He was already present in what I still had… breath in my lungs, my family around me, new friends, the beauty of the ocean stretching out in every direction.

And it’s been sitting with me ever since.
Because if I’m honest, we don’t just panic over lost glasses… we panic over the things we feel like we need to hold onto.

The habit you went back to again last night. The one you promised yourself you were done with. The one nobody knows about.

The conversation that plays on repeat at 2am. The thing you said. The way their face changed. The apology you gave that didn’t fix it.

The moment from years ago that still shows up uninvited. In a quiet car. In the middle of a good day. A whisper that says, “Don’t forget who you are. Don’t forget what you did.”

It’s exhausting. It clings. It follows.

And here’s the thing nobody talks about: part of us holds on to it on purpose. Like the weight is keeping us honest. Like if we let grace actually reach it, we’ll stop taking it seriously. Like we need to keep punishing ourselves so it counts.

But the truth is, when we bring that to Jesus… when we actually surrender it, not halfway, not just in words, but fully… it doesn’t sit on the surface anymore.

It sinks.

Not into forgetfulness like it didn’t matter… but into grace so deep it can’t be reached.

Scripture says, As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12

That’s not poetic exaggeration.
That’s reality.

Through the cross, Jesus didn’t just cover sin… He carried it all the way down. Deeper than we could ever swim. Further than we could ever retrieve.

And yet we still try.
We replay it.
We revisit it.
We go searching for things that are no longer ours to carry.

That’s what Holy Week confronts in us.

As we move toward Good Friday, we’re reminded that Jesus didn’t go to the cross to make us slightly better versions of ourselves.

He went to take the full weight of sin, shame, regret, and brokenness… and bury it in a place where it no longer has authority over us.

“It is finished.” John 19:30
Not “managed.”
Not “minimized.”
Finished.

So maybe the question isn’t, “Why did I lose this?”
Maybe the better question is, “Why do I keep reaching for something God has already taken from me?”

Meanwhile, you’re swimming in an ocean of grace, surrounded by beauty, invited into freedom… and missing it because you’re still staring at the bottom.

The enemy would love nothing more than to keep dragging you back to what God already cleared.
But he only wins if you keep diving.

Lift your head. There’s an entire ocean around you.