Shake it Off

We live less than an hour from our local beach, but we never really visit it. We’re not beach people. We’re mountain people. Something about swimming in water where I can’t see the bottom has never enticed me much.

But we live only a few hours from one of the most beautiful beaches in the country — Destin, Florida, known for its emerald‑colored water. This weekend, on our way home from my son’s taekwondo tournament, we stopped to visit my cousin, who lives just minutes from those emerald shores.

Since we were so close, we decided to at least take a look. And the moment we stepped onto the sand, I understood why people love it so much. This beach looked nothing like ours. The sand was white and soft, the water clear in some places and emerald in others. It was so inviting, it took my breath away.

We played in the sand and splashed in the water. I ran the sand through my fingers, enjoying how soft it felt. I could’ve stayed there all day.

A couple of hours later, it was time to head home. We changed quickly, but without a shower, the sand clung to our skin. It was annoying, but the day had been so beautiful that I ignored it. By the time we got home, I had forgotten all about the sand beneath my clothes.

Before bed, I tossed our wet beach clothes into the washer along with a load of colored laundry. I didn’t think twice. I wash dirt out of clothes all the time — it always comes out.

Well… sand doesn’t work that way.

The next morning, I opened the washer to find everything — the clothes, the drum, the bottom of the machine — covered in sand. I ran the load again, hoping a second wash would fix it. It didn’t. Not even close.

I tried vacuuming the clothes and the washer, but that only spread sand all over the floor. I finally called my cousin — a Florida resident and scuba instructor who practically lives at the beach.

She laughed and said, “You should’ve shaken the sand off before you washed them. Washing sandy clothes only makes the sand stick more.”

She told me she learned that lesson the hard way when she first moved to Florida — and ruined her washing machine. A little research confirmed it: sand blocks the lint filter, overheats the machine, grinds against the metal, and damages seals and bearings. If you don’t get it out quickly, it can cause long‑term damage.

As I stood there staring at my sandy mess, God started speaking to me.

The sand was offense.  

The sand was bitterness.  

The sand was sin I didn’t deal with.

In his bestselling book, The Bait of Satan, John Bevere explains that the word offense comes from the Greek word skandalon — the trigger of a trap where the bait is placed. Offense is literally the thing that lures us in.

If I’m honest, some days it doesn’t take much for offense to slip into my heart. More than I’d like to admit, I take the bait.

Sometimes it’s as simple as a close friend leaving me on read — which, yes, I take personally. I’m working on it. Kind of.

Other times, it’s asking my children to pick up after themselves a hundred times, only to find an overflowing pile of laundry and a dried-up bowl of grits left on my coffee table.

Sometimes it’s a cross word with my husband that started with a disagreement about our parenting styles — or the unused boat that’s been a yard ornament for the last ten years. TEN. YEARS. Nope. Not bitter at all.

How differently would my morning have looked if I had shaken the sand off before throwing everything into the wash? Instead, I let it sit. I let it spread. I let it cling to everything it touched.

Offense works the same way.

It comes in subtly. A grain here. A grain there. Before long, it’s everywhere. 

We hold onto it.  

It sticks.  

It spreads.  

It grows.  

And eventually, it causes damage.

When I read that sand blocks the flow of water and overheats the machine, I thought, That’s exactly what offense does. It blocks the flow of the Holy Spirit. It heats us up with anger. It wears us down over time.

And just like the sand in my washer, offense doesn’t stay contained.  

It spreads into other areas.  

It affects other relationships.  

It makes a bigger mess than it ever should have.

Now my porch is covered in wet, sandy clothes. I’m waiting for them to dry so I can shake the sand off and start over — the way I should’ve done in the first place.

Sometimes that’s what we have to do spiritually, too.

Sometimes we need to call someone wiser than us.  

Sometimes we need to admit we handled it wrong.  

Sometimes we need to go back to square one.  

And every time offense hits our heart, we need to shake it off before it sticks.

It’s not always easy.  

But with God’s help, it’s absolutely possible.

“The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook an offense.”

Proverbs 19:11 (NKJV)

Take a Moment

Where in your life do you feel offense starting to stick, and what would it look like to shake it off before it spreads?