“The waves of the sea help me get back to me.” (Jill Davis)
I hope one day life where I call home is also a place close to the ocean, as no matter what ocean I’ve visited throughout my life thus far, it’s taught me many lessons and help me find some level of peace within me. This held true a few weeks ago when I travelled with my best friend Cedric to York, Maine and stayed in an Atlantic Ocean beachfront hotel for four nights.
While the temperatures were unseasonably cool during our first three days there and weren’t conducive for swimming or sunbathing, I still felt inspiration from it. Most of that came late at night or early each morning from our balcony where I would listen to the lull of its waves and look out at the expansiveness of it all. I seem to relate far more to whatever God is in the expansiveness of the ocean, mostly because it’s so vast and something I also can’t control, the latter being the biggest struggle in my life and something I was reminded of when I finally was able to take a swim in the ocean on our last day of our trip.
I’m a pretty good swimmer, having grown up in a pool and having swum competitively from the ages of 5 to 17. The funny thing about that though, is that even the best of swimmers often struggle against the fury of the sea, which was precisely what happened when I made my way out into it on that final day in York. As frigid waters stung my extremities, I fought through the icy coldness and began to be met with one huge wave after another bashing into my body. Some of the waves coming at me were far over my 6’5” frame and probably the very reason why the lifeguards were on high alert that day. I could hear their whistles constantly going off trying to keep swimmers closer to shore, as there also was a riptide that day. And when’s there’s one of those, you’ll definitely know it. You see, it’s those aspects of the ocean that constantly remind me that God is far bigger than I because I couldn’t control any of those waves that day nor could I control that riptide, as the more I fought against either, the more I simply wore out becoming quickly tired. Eventually, I found far greater peace letting them take me where they did and it’s then I realized how much it was symbolic of my life.
I often fight against the ocean of my life, constantly trying to control the direction of where each of its waves take me. I have fought so hard to grasp control of the waves of my health, my finances, my relationship, my yard, my gardens, my friends, and well, a lot more. And every time I have, it’s gotten me nowhere except exhausted. The ocean reminded me of that, that day in those frigid waters, as I clearly saw that the only thing waiting for me whenever I fought against a wave and made it through, was yet another wave looming beyond it.
So, maybe it’s finally time to just ride out all these waves of my life, letting them take me where they will, trusting that the ocean, that God, is not something to fight against, and rather, something to ride alongside instead, as maybe the place where they’re headed is one filled with far greater peace than the lack of it that’s come from constantly trying to fight against them all…
May the lessons of the sea continue to bring me closer to You God and to myself as well.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
