We do not live anywhere near the ocean, but sometimes the longing in me for a walk along the shore where the foam caresses my feet is so intense and I wonder why that is. When I was little I would put a shell to my ear and listen to the waves crashing inside and I would imagine myself there in a contented day dream; digging in the sand, wiping my hair out of my eyes and squinting to see if there were whales or ships on the horizon. It’s as if the water, it’s salty sprays and sandy shores offer what cannot be found anywhere else. Peace, rest, healing and a sense of being held by something much, much bigger than ourselves.
Early one evening, with the car full of children, I was the cause of a car accident. There are many great drivers who drive faster and more defensively than I, and yet I found myself carefully driving across a clear road only to be in prime position for another vehicle to smack into us hitting the driver’s door at high speed. Incredibly, popcorn, earrings and glasses were all that were shaken in that car as it flew out of control. Those sorts of accidents are often fatal, people told me. We were cupped in God’s hands as if in an unbreakable bubble, I could feel that. Not a soul was hurt, not in our car or the other car. It was as if we did not reap the consequences of such an accident. Our community rallied around us and we all, eventually, arrived home.
All should have been well after the initial shock and yet it was not. I was far from okay. I replayed my thoughts and actions prior to the crash until I thought I’d be sick, and things did not add up. It was as if I had dived into our swimming pool only for a crocodile to come bursting out, mouth wide open. A direct hit. Blind-sided. It felt like an important part of me had been ripped open and my confidence was pouring out. Uncertainty was only too pleased to stand at the door of my heart, ready to push in and take over if I so much as peeped through a crack. I was troubled and afraid. If I could have had such an error of judgement perhaps I was unfit for even the simplest duties of life. Lies harassed like hornets on a rampage; “You are not capable!” “You cause trouble!” “You are going to fail!” “You are not careful enough!” Sometimes in life, things just happen. We are not under attack necessarily, we have not done anything wrong; bad things or sad things just happen. Sometimes we play our part and are reckless in our words or actions and then we reap a harvest we wish we had never planted. Other times there are agendas, assignments and forces of darkness at work. As I remember that night my heart is full of sorrow that I was responsible for causing havoc on that road and in the hearts of the precious children I was carrying. There was a greater force at play though, having little to do with what actually happened at that intersection, and everything to do with getting me to agree to a phrase: “You are out of commission.”
Later that evening, I climbed into bed and snuggled up close to my husband, desperate for tangible reassurance that everything would be okay again. How I longed to rewind the day and do everything differently – I would change my route, or even better, I would not even drive the car. Before long I drifted off to sleep, and for someone who is not a dreamer, I found myself in a vision so real to me it’s hard to believe I must only have dreamt it. Even now, years later, I can go back to that place where the wound was mended as new and my confidence came pouring back inside like a movie going in reverse. Not confidence in myself, mind you, but confidence in the Rock of Ages, the one who holds the oceans in His hands.
One moment my head was on my pillow, and the next I was standing in complete darkness. Soft, comforting, pure, holy darkness. I became aware of my surroundings as the reflection of the moon settled in silver streaks on the ocean’s surface. Waves rippled delicately all around me and I realised I was standing on the back of a whale, solid, smooth and shiny. I held an oar of sorts and if I hadn’t been out on open seas, I might have been pushing a gondola along the canals in Venice. All was well – absolute peace. The glow of the kind, round moon; the vastness of the sea – swollen, deep and full; the magnificence of the whale and the mystery of the silvery night.
Usually, watching the ocean from the safety of the shore is my kind of thing. I am not into water sports or deep sea diving. Walking beside, paddling or sitting and watching is one thing. Actually going into the shallows and beyond is something entirely different. Sometimes I have gone further than my comfort zone, only to be dumped by a rogue wave and unable to distinguish which way is up. The ocean makes me feel vulnerable and out of my depth. I cannot be sure what is beneath the sand my toes are digging into or what it is that has just wrapped itself around my knee cap. Once when I did go diving, an eel popped his head out of a crevice in the deeps and I became the fastest human on earth. The ocean is not where I run to hide. And yet, on a most traumatic night, I found myself enveloped by Love Himself in the remotest parts of the very waters I have stayed out of; far, far away from everything I am familiar with. There was no land in sight and only the light of the moon gave outline to our forms. The rhythmic swells of the glassy surface were a silent lullaby as I rode on the back of a whale, and everything was made right. Held enchantingly safe, everything could go wrong in an instant yet nothing would. I had no true power to steer or navigate and yet I held a paddle stick and was balanced, in an unusual yet perfect position on the shoulders of what seemed to be all the power in the universe!
Nature points to God. If we have eyes to see. Job 12 verses 7 to 10 says: “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? And perhaps this is why so many of us yearn for the sea. It’s something physical which exudes the divine. It’s vast and wild and tenderly holds the lives of the most spectacular array of creatures in it’s swaying bosom. Its connection with the moon is an invisible yet factual thread – once a mystery and yet now even accepted by commoners. There are those like me who are full of awe and respect and we keep our distance, yet our sleep improves and the cracks in our heels disappear and our lungs clear up when we even come close. We are cautious but cannot stay away. These waters we are so unable to capture and train give us insight into the One who made them and Who stamps His very fingerprints into everything He forms. Do not be afraid of the ocean. Like C.S. Lewis’s lion, He is not tame or safe, but He is good. In the light of all this and the dream I so mercifully dreamt, why don’t we quit running from and dive right into the Presence of the Great?
Hebrews 10 verse 35
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised.
For
‘in just a little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.’
And,
‘But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.’
But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
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