Sometimes the struggles that weigh on us the most are not circumstances, but thoughts—thoughts that return again and again like waves against the same shoreline. I didn’t realize how much those rolling and crashing waves were shaping my spiritual life until a simple ocean photograph, a painting, and a few Bible word studies began to reveal something deeper.

What started as a quiet question about my own restless thoughts became an unexpected journey into what Scripture says about the heart, the mind, the soul, and the thoughts that move through us. And strangely enough, the crashing waves along the rocky coast of Cambria helped me see it more clearly than ever before.

About a year ago, I was delighted when Don took me to Cambria, a lovely coastal town just north of Morro Bay. We walked along the boardwalk taking photos, trying to capture the beauty of waves exploding against rocks, and powerful swirling waters.

We had only been married about a year. It was the beginning of the second chapter of our lives, now together, and God had given us a Scripture that felt like a shield of protection for this new season.

Isaiah 43:18–19 says:

“Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.”

It was a perfect Scripture for our marriage.

Yet I struggled to follow those wonderful directives.

Instead of leaving the past behind, I found myself wanting to know everything about it. I sorted through hundreds of Don’s old photographs. Some stirred warm appreciation for the life that had shaped him. Others surfaced unexpected emotions. At the same time, I missed my family back in Washington and Alaska and felt the distance from everything familiar.

The past was not as easy to “forget” as Isaiah seemed to suggest.

Recently, I asked ChatGPT to transform one of our Cambria ocean photos into an oil painting. The result was beautiful. As I looked at the image, I was drawn to another passage of Scripture—Hebrews 12:1:

“Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles.”

The word weight caught my attention.

The weight I felt was not necessarily a visible burden. It was the constant swirl of thoughts—thoughts about our pasts, thoughts that revisited old questions, thoughts that replayed memories again and again. They tangled around my spiritual feet and made it difficult to walk freely in the joy of the Lord.

I prayed often for contentment and gratitude. Those prayers were answered—but only in small increments.

Then one day as I studied the ocean painting, something struck me. The large rocks rising from the water reminded me of the past. The waves crashing against them were like my emotions—constantly returning, colliding with what could not be changed.

The rocks were immovable.

No matter how much the water surged, the rocks remained.

That picture stirred something in me, and I decided it was time to face the issue directly. I opened my online Bible study tool, Blue Letter Bible, and began an investigation. First, I searched for the word thoughts. Then I searched for mind, soul, and heart.

Then I gathered those passages together and asked ChatGPT to help summarize the themes I was seeing. The Scriptures themselves were clear—the Bible has a great deal to say about our thoughts, our mind, our soul, and especially our heart.

What I discovered surprised me.

The Bible speaks often about our thoughts, but it rarely treats them as the deepest center of who we are. Thoughts are described as something that can wander, multiply, accuse, imagine, or be taken captive.

Thoughts are real, but they are not the deepest part of the human person.

Scripture points instead to the heart.

The heart, in biblical language, is the core of our inner life—the place where desires, choices, trust, and devotion reside. Proverbs tells us, “Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Jesus said that what comes out of a person originates from the heart. Paul prayed that believers would have the “eyes of their heart enlightened.”

In other words, the heart is the true control center.

The mind processes understanding.
The soul expresses our living self.
Thoughts move through our awareness.

But the heart directs the whole person.

Suddenly, my Cambria painting began to make more sense.

The waves in the painting were like my thoughts—constantly moving, sometimes calm, sometimes crashing. The rocks represented the unchangeable realities of the past. But the ocean itself—the deeper body beneath the waves—reminded me of something deeper still.

The heart.

Waves may thrash on the surface, but the deeper ocean remains steady.

This realization changed something for me.

My problem was not that thoughts existed. Thoughts naturally come and go, just like waves on the sea. The problem was that I had been allowing those waves to define the condition of my heart.

Hebrews 12 suddenly sounded different.

“Lay aside every weight.”

Perhaps the weight was not the existence of thoughts themselves, but the habit of carrying them, rehearsing them, and letting them entangle my steps.

When I looked again at the Cambria painting, I saw something new. The waves were still crashing. The rocks were still there. But the scene was not chaotic after all. It was simply the nature of the ocean.

Waves move.

Rocks remain.

But beneath it all lies a vast and steady depth.

God was gently reminding me that He works at that deeper level. He does not merely quiet the waves of passing thoughts; He renews the heart itself.

And when the heart rests in Him, the waves lose their power to entangle our steps.

The past may remain like those rocks along the shoreline—real, visible, unmovable. But the grace of God creates something stronger than the waves that crash against them.

The waves may keep moving, but they no longer decide the direction of my heart.

A new heart.

And from that renewed heart flows something I had been asking God for all along:

contentment, gratitude, and the quiet joy of walking forward into the “brand-new” work He promised.

Artist’s Reflection

The Cambria ocean painting became more than a memory of a beautiful coastal walk. It turned into a visual reminder of the spiritual journey God was taking me through.

The rocks in the painting represent the past—real events and memories that cannot be removed or rewritten. They stand firm along the shoreline of our lives.

The waves represent our thoughts and emotions. They move constantly. Sometimes they are calm and gentle; other times they surge with surprising force. Left unchecked, they can repeatedly crash against the same places in our hearts.

But the ocean itself is deeper than the waves.

Then there is the sun shining across the sea and the sea reflecting its light and beauty. Hebrews 12:2 says, “Fixing our eyes on Jesus.” The Son of God, the Light of the world, the Way, the Truth, the Life! He is our focus and shines the light of His truth across all the waves of our lives so everything reflects His glory. The sun represents Him revealing Himself to us through all our circumstances, past, present. and future.

God does not promise to erase every memory or prevent every passing thought. Instead, He invites us to anchor our hearts in Him. Beneath the surface movement of thoughts, He forms a deeper, steadier life within us.

When our hearts are settled in Him, the waves lose their power to entangle our steps.

The rocks may remain, but the ocean belongs to God.