It was Labor Day weekend and everyone was aching to take a trip to the beach. We liked to hit the Jersey shore whenever Uncle Bob gets the time. The plan was to head out to the beach to catch some sun, see a show in Atlantic City, have a nice meal together and spend the night at a swanky hotel :) I was up for all that.
I never owned a bathing suit before i came to the States. Whenever i'd go to the beach with the gang, i'd always find myself thinking (as i sat there while the sun rips me apart) "What is the point of all this?" I just couldn't appreciate the inactivity of sun-bathing. But there i was, trying my best not to care that i was actually coming to a bright orange crisp. Looking back on it now, i must've looked like such an idiot spraying sunblock on myself every 5 seconds. But after i calmed down (i think after a small dose of poison from inhaling some of that sunblock, LOL) i started to realize how much of the experience i was wasting away all because of my fear of getting a little tanned. So i decided to head out to the water with Lissy and play on the waves. It looked fun enough. The water was fuhreeezing. But i went in anyway knowing that it wouldn't be so bad after a while of being in it. Lissy then turns to me and very casually tells me what to do when an approaching wave hits me. She said to just dive under it--or something like that. And so i was like, "Sure, pppfff, i can do that. You didn't need to tell me."
There were small children in the water, as well as grown me and women. They were all "riding" waves like it was nothing. It was pretty fun at first. The water level was a little high for me but i quickly learned how to kind of just jump so that my head stays above the water. After a while though, the waves got so much bigger. And the water started dragging me harder out into the ocean. 8 foot waves started rolling in in a slow chain. It was alright at first, because i had some time to come up for air before the next one came. But then what looked like 10 foot waves started crashing in on my 97lbs, 5'2 frame. I couldn't get my rhythm back. Every time i dove in, the top of the wave would hit my back and send me spinning around 3x or 4x under the water. At one point, i thought i was actually just gonna die. That the paper next morning would read "Ignorant tourist dies in tragic somersault." I had to (very quickly and subtly) fix my swimsuit every time i came up for air because the impact of the waves would literally displace my body parts. Oh it went on for like an hour or something. I was so tired but i kept my cool even though i was just about ready to faint from exhaustion. I remember coming out of the water feeling like i just had a vigorous workout of pointless physical battery. But i didn't die that day. Thank you Jesus! :)
It's memories like this one that reminds me that GOD still has a plan for me. I don't have to know what it is. It's not my job to find out. If we all had to wait for GOD to reveal his will for us before we obeyed, then it wouldn't be considered faith, would it? Faith isn't an easy thing to develop. It takes an awful lot of genuine trust in the LORD to really begin to follow HIM. We don't like not knowing what's gonna happen and not being able to control our own lives. But how much of our own wisdom can we really rely on? Can we ever really know enough about life and truth and love and death to rely on our own actions and the work of our feeble hands? Don't do it, friend. Submit your life to GOD today. "He will show you great and mighty things which you do not know." It's not gonna be all warm and fuzzy. In fact, the enemy is gonna try even harder to bring you down. But what's great about knowing GOD and being known by HIM is the love that'll make you alive at last.
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