Message in a Bottle

This is a topic that has been on my mind constantly ever since I picked up the book "Message in a Bottle" by the one and only Nicholas Sparks. If anyone out there has read it, I would love to hear your thoughts on the novel that touched my life.

Have you ever really thought about the simple, yet intricate art of sending messages by bottles via the ocean? I never really gave any thought to the type of person who would do that, you know, sending letters out into the unknown and having not a clue in the world where it may end up.

Now ladies and gentlemen, I am not talking about the people who send messages in bottles to get some sort of idea of the way the current of the ocean flows. No. I am talking about the people who write their feelings down on paper and seal them up in a bottle that they will toss into the ocean.

That kind of act has to come with some uncertainty but when I give it a second thought, it's as if people give in to God and know that he will take the letter where it needs to be. Where whoever finds that letter washed up on the beach really needed it.

Back to the book.

If you have never read "Message in a Bottle" I strongly recommend you do.

I try to live my life freely though consciously. I do not cry on the whims of the world unless they touch something deep inside me. And believe me when I say that this book has brushed away emotion I never thought I could feel by reading words on paper.

Whenever I first began to read, I was intrigued by the sheer soul of the characters. The way this man, Garrett, pours his heart out onto a piece of paper then simply launches it into the ocean is beyond me. With each word I read of his letters, I felt the tears welling in my eyes. The pain he portrays of lost love, the way he cared and still does for his wife Catherine. The terrible loss he is living through. I couldn't possibly imagine how he felt, but at the same time, I felt like I knew him. With each word I felt closer to him and the longing to reach out and comfort him. You can imagine my shock when these feelings came as I was only laying on my bed reading this amazing book. I found myself feeling as though I was a part of something. Of a tragic story in which such passionate love is jerked away by fate. I wondered, why? How can someone so loved and so needed just be snatched away by God just whenever he realizes he has found love again? It just didn't seem fair to me. It still doesn't.

My hope is to one day visit the ocean of Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina, if such a place exists, and write my own message to Garrett of how I feel for him and how his story is always in the back of my mind. Then, I will simply slide it in a bottle, cork it, and send it out to sea where I know God will be sure Garrett finds it.

The story has come so alive in my brain that there is no questions whether Sparks wrote it based on a true story. Whether he did or did not, the story is true and real to me. Now that, my readers, is the art of writing.

-Hannah