I remember when...

It wasn't too long ago, when my greatest worry was what to fix for dinner, how I was going to lose this extra weight and getting my kids through school.  I used to spend time clipping coupons, finding good deals on household items, planning get-togethers for family and friends, and the latest craft item in Homemaking.  No big challenges to handle, just being and doing. 

I was just floating along, really.  No need to know how to swim because I was always close to shore and could stand up if I got tired of paddling.  I wondered, then, what my next life challenges would be.  Now it feels as if I were thrown into the ocean, sometimes feeling it swallow me up in its massive, unforgiving, uncontrollable movement!  Unknown territory!  A place where your experience, wisdom and knowledge doesn't help you now. 

In the movie, Other Side of Heaven, when the men are thrown into the ocean with no land in sight, just huge waves crashing down on them, how would they know what direction to swim or if there was ever hope of reaching land while they were still alive?  Who finds their way in the middle of the ocean?  No landmarks to go by!  In the middle of a storm, you don't even have the heavens to show where you are!

I think the worse thing to do is to give up or do nothing.  Sinking is not moving forward.

There is always hope and courage to kick your legs and move your arms, to move forward.  Sometimes you find a life preserver to rest on while you find strength to go on.  Sometimes another swimmer comes along and pulls you up from the depths of the sea, just long enough for you to catch your breath and keep going.  You never know what God is going to send you to help you, but you know He will not forget.  He is aware and He will send you everything you need to make it through this storm, this challenge.  Amazingly, you see others trying to face their own challenges.  Sometimes they are swimming in the same current you are.  You find that even though you are struggling to make it through your own storm, reaching out and lifting them gives you more strength and power than you could imagine was possible!

Sometimes you wonder, isn't it enough that I have to swim this ocean?  Must there be waves to conquer, and rain and thunder and lightning and sea creatures?  Isn't it enough that I'm cold and wet and tired and afraid?

But, you keep going, one day at a time...and you learn things along the way, things that you would have never learned on dry land.  Things like patience, empathy, faith, long suffering, endurance, hope, love, what things you should value and cherish, what is truly unimportant...

...and when it's over, and were given the choice, would you choose not to make the journey?