ocean deep
I grew up around the water. In water, on water, by water. My soul is soothed simply by the sound of moving water. I could be on it in any capacity endlessly and not grow weary.The people we grew up next door to, who became like grandparents to us, had a pool and expected us to come over every. single. day. And if we didn’t, they would call and ask if everything was alright and if we were coming over soon.Then there was the lake and endless hours playing by the dock at my childhood best friend’s family lake house. Dangling toes over the dock waiting for fishies to nibble. Squealing and laughing, climbing up onto rafts imagining gars swimming below us...because, you just never knew when one might be there. (Truthfully, we never saw one...but the lore and legends gave endless entertainment.) Even as a toddler, I remember pouting because I didn’t want to get out of the water for my nap time. But my mama would soothe my pout away rocking me in a hammock until I could resist sleep no longer. But I still slept outside, by the water.
Floating, swimming, playing, running, swinging, laying. All around the water.I even took every Red Cross certified swimming and water safety course available, except for the final life guarding course. So I could save you if you fell in! I have no logical reason to fear the water. I am prepared for a myriad of disasters.But there’s something that has always scared me about the water. Deep water...but only when I can see how deep it is. Even if it’s fathoms upon fathoms deep but I can’t see how deep it is, I’m totally fine. But doing laps and seeing the lane line plunge below me...it gives me the creeps. I have been out on a boat on the ocean sailing on a catamaran happy as can be, swinging out on the net out front feeling the salt spray and sun streaming. But if I were to look down...and see through clear water...Something of the vastness, enormity, the known depths...it terrifies me.
The same thing that I love, that soothes me, simply terrifies me when it’s in a quantity I cannot comprehend...and I can see it. When I’m confronted with the reality of it’s enormity. Complete otherness.My smallness. My frailty. My vulnerability. My lack of control. How something could so easily consume me. Take me.In the Dominican, the girls asked me one day if there was anything I was afraid of. They saw me calm, steadfast, unmoved. Killing spiders, running after a child separated from the group, helping to manage details for 35 people in a foreign country. Unmoved, undeterred, steadfast.In all honesty, I answered them that there is plenty I am afraid of...like being known.In that one admission, I effectively sideswiped the conversation sideways and deeper. It silenced their chatter for a moment as they digested my statement. Then the moment was over and they went back to making plans to snorkel and asking when lunch would be ready.
Even when I was younger when people would try to jump out and scare me in the dark, I would just laugh. Honestly, laughter is my first response in many situations. My daddy trained me well with his sense of humor and wit and ability to diffuse tension. But if I were to go a bit deeper and be a bit more honest, my laughter would definitely be a defense mechanism built up to not let others win. To not let them have control over my responses. To stay in control.But when something so much greater than me confronts me to a depth, literally, that I can not reckon with...my raw response bubbles up in fear. Sick to my stomach, collapse imminent, fear.I cannot laugh at an ocean disorientingly deep. I cannot laugh away a vastness looming near enough to consume me. I cannot laugh in the face of the terrible unknown.But the unknown is so terrible... Terror able. Fear able.
A few songs loop through my mind, running continually these last couple of months. One is ironically called “Oceans” and has this line:“Your grace abounds in deepest waters...”
The deepest waters, beyond what I can control, large enough to completely consume me. Unknown depths teeming with unknown life. Every bit of it larger and stranger and more terrible and more beautiful than I can comprehend. His grace abounds.When waves of panic surge, His grace swells greater.When ocean deep looms, the Lord calls to me (to us), “Peace, be still!” (Mark 4:39).When I become my own storm riding on the vast waters He says, “Stop! Be still. Be quiet. Quit. Do nothing. Be silenced. Relax. Let go!” (Psalm 46:10)In the face of the terrible unknown, grace abounding.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m_sWJQm2fs&w=560&h=315]