Out past where the waves break an older man struggled to stay upright on a paddleboard; his bearing marked him for an amateur. I watched as he teetered then tottered then finally lost the fight and fell into the water. I waited on the beach anxious to see him climb his way back onto the board. Moments later he did and knelt there for several seconds then stood again, paddled again, fell again. Process repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated… From my safe little nest on the beach I smiled. I admired his perseverance, wondered if I’d do the same.
The question seems simple when addressing a paddleboard, but it really is a broader question about life, yes? In any given situation, you stand, find your center of balance, feel safe, then comes a slightly (or much) bigger wave than you expected, and you’re no longer stable, can’t recover your center (no matter how much yoga or Pilates you do), and you find yourself tossed into the water. Now, you have a choice. Do you stay treading water, hoping against hope that the life you knew comes back around to pick you out of the depths before your legs and stamina give out, or do you climb back on the board and try again? Start all over? Keep moving forward, not giving in or up because something more lies before you out there on the horizon, something worth moving toward?
There have been waves in my life – several of them – that have knocked me into the water, and, between you and me, I have merely treaded water, sometimes for years. I have waited for those lives I knew, lives I held onto by the tips of my fingernails, to pluck me into the dry safety of their little rafts. I’ll tell you, those rafts never came. I cried, I screamed, I begged in prayer, and…nothing. I was left treading water.
The truth we avoid telling ourselves is that those rafts aren’t supposed to come. Once we’re knocked off the board, those lives fall into the water with us, and the lives, well, they don’t tread water. Instead, they sink down into the darkest, coldest depths never to be salvaged (even in a James Cameron film).
We can mourn those lives for an appropriate amount of time, but then we need leave them lie on the bottom of the ocean and turn our faces to the horizon, set our hearts on the next attempt because, truly, we don’t live in what has happened. We live in what is happening, and if all we’re doing is treading water awaiting a raft that isn’t coming, we’ll miss the magnificent moments God has planned for us right now. And if we’re seeking Him on a road we’ve already travelled, we won’t find Him waiting there either. He’s with us in the immediate moment. He’s waiting up ahead as well, but He’s not petrifying in our pasts.
So, let the waves come because sometimes the lives we’re living aren’t the lives we’re meant to live, and the only way out is being knocked into the water. Or sometimes bad things or unexpected things just happen. Regardless of the “why,” let that life sink; let it settle into the sandy ocean floor. Then climb back on the board and paddle into the horizon, into the next chapter written.
The Unexpected Life 