Captain’s Log – Star Date: 12006.16 – One More Step

A friend shared the clip below with me this morning from the movie Facing The Giants. I’ve watched this movie a few times. If you’re into sports and specifically football it’s a great story but even if you’re not a sports person, this movie is worthy of your time. Give it a watch…

https://youtu.be/-sUKoKQlEC4 Facing The Giants – Death Crawl

As I watched this clip again, I was drawn into the words the coach kept using to encourage his player to keep going. No matter that the player couldn’t see how far he still had to go, those encouraging and yes difficult words, kept pulling him forward. Carrying the load he was bearing much farther than he thought he could. To not give up but keep pushing on even though it hurt. No matter how much it hurt.

That’s how it is for you and I. The load we carry are sometimes so heavy. We might not even know why we are carrying it. We ask why me? Why is this happening to me?

Maybe we feel we can carry it for a short while, a distance that seems sufficient to us. But when that load stays on us longer than we expected, we grow so tired of it. So weary. To take another step while still carrying our load is impossible. It’s too hard. We want to give up.

But we too have a coach that is on our side. Giving us words of encouragement. Supporting us by guiding us in which way we should turn. The words of our coach are hard to hear and many times difficult to follow. But his words are always what’s best for us. If we trust in his words and fully believe that he is for us, not against us, we can reach our goals. Even go farther than we thought we could with our burden.

And we find out we can actually carry that burden and more if we have faith in our coach and believe in his words.

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:37‬

Who’s your coach? Are you listening to his words? Do you believe him when he says you can do it and he’ll be right there with you the entire way? I do because the only way I’ve been able to carry my heaviest burdens is by trusting in my coach and his words.

What burdens do you carry? What goal seems too hard to reach? As we all continue to carry our loads, our burdens, let’s remember to keep listening to our coach. Let’s allow his words of encouragement to envelope us, to strengthen us, to guide as we crawl our way through life.

In the end we’ll see that our coach was right. We could and can do it. And we were even able to carry 20 lbs more than we thought we could.

Keep crawling and carry on.

See you down the road….

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At The Surface

There really is something about being by water that is calming for me. Be that an ocean, river, or lake they all seem to bring me to a place of calmness and peace. Healing waters or perhaps just a restoration of balance. I really love being by the water and it’s kind of ironic. You see I can’t swim.

I guess I’m okay as long as I’m by the water and not in it. Although donning a life vest and floating along I’m very okay with. Gotta have that one life saving device that keeps me from going under and drowning. I prefer the orange colored life preserver myself as it seems to compliment my complexion. Pearly white.

This past Sunday while listening to our pastor give his message on parenting, my mind began to wander. I believe my wandering thoughts were triggered by something the pastor said about living in the moment with your children. So of course my thoughts immediately jumped to spending some time away from my beautiful loving kids. Guess a Freudian moment for me. See pastor Mark, you never know how your message will motivate us. 😄

Being so inspired, I went home after church, packed up clothes, supplies, and Izzy the Doodle and hit the road. Once I was driving, I headed East and decided to go to the Chesapeake Bay Area for five days. Not my first spontaneous road trip but the first I hadn’t at least researched a little before leaving. So the first time my bladder and the Doodle’s needed a rest stop, I took time to google a place to stay and booked an AirBnb on Gwynn Island in Virginia before continuing East.

Why Chesapeake Bay you might ask? Simply because I had never been there before and it was water. Plus the weather looked a lot better for the week than it did in Central Ohio. It’s now Wednesday and I’m very happy with my choice. Temps in the 70s, sunshine, cool breezes, and the peaceful sounds of water lapping on the rocks and birds singing in the trees. And very beautiful sunsets!

This trip has nothing to do about seeing the sights or finding entertainment. This trip is about slowing down and relaxing. About re-centering myself to what my life and living really should be about. A getaway. A retreat. A trip to focus on the water and allow it to restore my body and spirit. And a time to drink in more of the water of life.

As I enjoy this afternoon I’m watching the water in the bay. On the surface, it’s pretty calm and that brings me peace. Some moments the wind increases and the bay waters begin to wave up from the blowing. The water seems to speed up on its journey. And that makes me think of my life and how outside things or events can influence the flow of my living.

We all experience the hectic life. Where we are going with the current trying to keep ourselves a float. Sometimes it’s easy and we float along enjoying the journey. But other times things move too quickly, the waters get rough, and our sense of peace becomes panic as we just try to keep our head above water. And sometimes it’s so rough we truly feel like the waves are overwhelming us and we’re running out of breath. My life has been like all of these over the past four years.

But today and for the past few months, my journey on the water has been fairly peaceful. Watching the waters of the bay I’m reminded to look just not on the surface but also below. You see while the wind may be pushing up ever rougher waves on the surface, below the surface it’s calmer. And the deeper we go the more calm the water becomes. It’s in that deeper water we can be at peace. We just have to figure out how to breathe down there until we can come back to the surface.

I’m beginning to discover that when things get rough in life, I shouldn’t hold my breath until it passes. I’m learning that when life’s waves start to overwhelm me, that’s the time I need to dive below the surface to the place where I can breathe in peace. Where the water is calmer as I get closer to its source. I need to trust that the waves will not keep me down. That because I know the source of the water of life, I’m going to resurface and will be able to sustain the waves when they come again.

We all have access to that source. It’s up to each of us to not panic because of the waves but to dive deep under the waves and seek the source of peace. To get close and breathe it in.

What is the source? For me, it’s my faith. My faith in a God that is above and greater than any waves in my life. Knowing that as I get closer to Him, through prayer and reading His book, He gives me the water and breath I need to survive. And not just survive but thrive once again on the surface of the waters of living.

As I spend my last two days at the bay, I’m thankful for the water. For the way it ebbs and flows. Even when the waves get rough I’m thankful because I know they will eventually calm. It’s up to me to find the peace that sustains and thankfully I’m finding it more and more.

And so can you. Dive deep my friends.

See you down the road….