When sorrows like sea billows roll

Andrew and I are in way over our heads. Work, kids, house, marriage. Wash, rinse, repeat, repeat. These days, it’s easy to feel like we’re drowning or at least barely treading water. We’re both so on-demand for respective work and family situations that any down time we have quickly turns into TV time which turns even more quickly to snooze time. We’re spent ya’ll, and life just doesn’t let up; in fact, it seems to draw even more from us each year.

But now a weight much more significant than your average crazy-day-in-the-life burden is upon us. My beloved father, the man I thought could never die, passed away last Wednesday. Let me take a time out and ask, How is this even possible? To those who have experienced any kind of loss like this, did it seem like it couldn’t be REAL? It just can’t be.

We must free ourselves from the hope that the sea will ever rest.
We just learn to sail in high winds.
– Hanmer Parsons Grant

Three weeks ago, I read this quotation on my Classic Sailing calendar and identified with it right away. {I have no idea who H.P. Grant is, but this thought works; meme below} There’s always something big going on, isn’t there? The waves constantly crash, so why do we flounder and flail, hoping the gale will ease and THAT’S when we’ll be happy and capable of handling stress? I’m learning that there’s no such time. Even when one wave settles, another swells in its place.

Which is why it’s important to understand that peace isn’t circumstantial. I can’t say, “If only Dad had gotten better, life would have been peaceful,” or “When we don’t have to pay for the kids to be in diapers, then I’ll have peace,” or “If we had a second car, I’d really start to relax.” Peace comes with the full on embrace of God’s will, with surrendering myself and answering eagerly when he calls me to walk on the water in the midst of a storm. How often it is that, like Peter, I feel like I can’t handle what God asks of me, and maybe that’s why I panic sinking in the surf. But Peter did the impossible, in fact he asked Christ to command the impossible from him, then did it with his gaze fixed on Jesus.

But what does that even mean?? I think the idea of “keeping our eyes on Christ,” is quite obviously a good one, but does anyone understand what it means practically speaking? Just off the top, I suppose that keeping my gaze on Christ means daily prayer and tending my vocation. Andrew has been abundantly generous in allowing me time to get away from the house and kids, so when I’m on my way home, I pick up coffee to let him know I’m thinking of him. I clean up the living room with him, sit down with him if he’s reading, and listen to him if he’s exhausted. The boys require little more than a present mama – paging through torn up books, encouragement, and smiles for everyone who needs them. If I pray and serve my family in the simplest of ways, then confidence and peace will reign no matter how high the tide; and I’m hoping that, by God’s grace, the waves won’t seem so furious anymore.