Give me your hand....

I can smell the salt in the air....feel the hot sand on my bare feet and hear the crashing of the waves on the ocean shore. Just saying it makes me want to be there. I LOVE THE BEACH.

Growing up near the southern Atlantic Coastline...I spent many a day...riding the waves and playing in the warm...I mean...bathwater warm...surf....stuff I dream about these days.

Playing in the waves...is an interesting thing. The ocean is so beautiful and yet so unpredictable and wild. It can be totally fun and totally scary at the same time.

One time in my adolescent years....we were playing at the beach and I was swimming in the ocean. I was a pretty strong swimmer and felt confident at what I was doing...I'd done it a million times. We were hanging out with family and friends that lived there...and who knows, maybe I was showing off a little bit too. There's nothing quite like riding the waves...I knew I needed to get past the big ones, so I wouldn't get pummelled into the ocean floor....but I shouldn't go too far out so that I couldn't make it back in from the undertow or the current of the tide.

The thing is though...when you're out there....the wave coming looks HUGE and so I'd swim hard to meet it before it peeked and then I'd see the next one and the next one and I just kept getting farther and farther out until I looked behind me and I was really out there. Enough to scare me. So I started swimming as hard as I could back in the opposite direction...not worrying about the waves anymore...just wanting to get closer to shore....

My legs started to hurt and my heart started to panic...I was swimming towards the shore with all my might but I wasn't going anywhere, the tide was going out and I couldn't swim hard enough to fight it...

Then I saw my good friend Randy....swimming out to meet me. He lived there...and understood the ocean. He didn't know I was in trouble...just thought I might be. He grabbed my hand and helped me swim till the waves could push me in and I could get to shore.

Life can be like that...our spiritual journey can be like that. We can head out in a direction and keep going a little farther at a time, thinking that all is well, until we look behind us and think, "How did I get here?"

Where are you? Is there somebody in your life...that needs you to swim out and meet them? Or are you the one...swimming with all your might and not getting anywhere?

Oh Lord, Thank you for being our help in times of trouble. Thank you for being the One Who Saves!

Psalm 46:1-3
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.