A Raft on the Waves

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lighthouseSome of us wake up with dreams, others with songs going through our minds. This morning, I woke up with what seemed to be an uncharacteristic memory and song going through mine. Years ago I’d watched the movie, “Titanic”. I don’t agree with one set of scenes being in the movie and haven’t been able to watch it again since because of those scenes. But two other sets of scenes began playing in my mind this morning, and the final song that the movie is so known for was playing in the background.

The first scene was of the young girl on the makeshift raft, letting go of her new boyfriend’s hands as he slips below the waves and dies. The second scene is of that same girl as an elderly woman, tossing her heart-shaped locket into the ocean as her tour boat sails over the place where the accident happened so many years earlier.

I’ve heard some say that there is a reason why you wake up with the thoughts, feelings, or songs that you do. Being as I have entered a time of physical rest and healing, and due to how the reality of that need was brought to everyone’s awareness, I have often felt more like the young girl on the raft. Laying there, all she could do was wait for the rescue boats to arrive. She couldn’t save herself or improve her situation on her own. She had to lay there and wait.

It isn’t easy for someone like myself to just lay there and wait. Doers, fixit’s, go-getters, self-motivators. . . we all have trouble when it comes to being told that a) we don’t have and won’t get the answers before being required to move on. b) we are in a holding pattern and are not permitted out of it even if we wanted to and any attempt at doing so makes the current situation worse. c) all our best efforts, improvisations, and at times even our know-how, fail to move us forward because when we finally admit it, it’s out of our control.

This past weekend has felt a bit like the waves under my raft getting stronger and more active. When my current health issues surfaced, I actually wondered if there was any hope in the situation at all! Up until this point, I’d never experienced what it was like to have no hope. Even now as I admit this, as a long-standing born-again Christian it seems sacriligious to admit to entering that place of hopelessness. But for a moment there, I did.

In the days and weeks that have passed, glimmers of hope have begun shining through. Some stronger than others and some only flickering, but they are there. The goal now is to do what God brings my way to do, to rest in between times, and to lift my eyes from the waves around me and onto His face. Those last two items are alot easier said than done, but they are doable. . . Maybe someone out there needed to hear this, needed to know that someone else identifies with them and their struggle. I can see other rafts in the waves around me. Are you on one of them?

 

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