It was just a starfish

Sam and Joe had just come back from spring break and were about to watch a movie but needed to stop by Joe’s room first. As they were talking about how great their two weeks of spring break was Sam caught a glimpse of something. He paused in mid sentence and was silent for just a second. Joe turned to see why Sam was suddenly quiet.
“Did you just get this starfish?” asked Sam, completely ignoring the past subject
“Yeah I got it this semester, my roommate made it himself, he found it…” Joe continued the story of the starfish while Sam’s mind was somewhere else.
“Why did you ask?”
“You know how stuff can bring up memories?”
“Yeah, so what about the starfish?”
“Well it just brought up a memory of a conversation I had with someone.” There was some longing in Sam’s eyes. Joe could tell this memory had to do with someone.
After a few more seconds of silence from Joe, Sam continued with his story.
“It’s just that Laura and I had randomly talked about starfish one night, this starfish just reminded me of her.” Sam smiled a little bit and shook his head. He continued,
“I never had this happen to me before, it’s the strangest thing that a starfish could bring back so many memories.”
Joe knew what he meant by memories. Sam had been pursuing Laura but for some reason he ended it during spring break.
“Are you sure about this whole Laura thing?”
“Yeah, I know it’s what God wants and it’s what I want too, it’s just that, that starfish brought back memories.”
“I know what you mean, when I broke up with my girlfriend I had to throw out everything that reminded me of her.”
“Oh, so that’s why people do that.”
“It really sucked because there were some good songs I liked but I can’t listen to now.”
Sam was still holding the starfish in his hands. He put it down and breathed out a sigh of emotions.
“Dang, that’s hard, I would hate for that to happen to me, I’m glad it was just a starfish.”

It’s strange how a simple starfish can bring back so many memories to haunt you. It’s been four months since then and I can look at starfish normally again. The hardest thing is I still see Laura around campus. It’s sad how sometimes I wish I could have my way, my selfish way would have been against God’s way. For some good reason I know that God doesn’t want Laura and I to be together. I just have to trust Him. It’s especially hard since I’m single right now too. Sacrifice isn’t about giving something up when it’s convenient or easy, real sacrifice is just that, it’s sacrifice. God has taught me a lot in submitting every aspect of my life to him. I’m really brought back to the Lord’s prayer “Your [Heavenly Father] will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” (Matthew 6:10)