Ahoy…

It happened the summer before I moved to China.

I went on a cruise to the Bahamas with my awesome friends Katie and Erin. (See the cheesy awesome cruise photo on the right.)  Now, I didn’t really consider myself to be a tropical cruise type of girl – maybe I saw myself more on a Mediterranean or Alaskan cruise ship.  But regardless, I absolutely knew this was going to be a fun vacation, mainly because of the awesomeness of the company and the promise of lots of sunshine.

Along with plenty of opportunities for chilling on the deck, drinking fruity beverages and working on our tans, we also went on excursions every day.  Sea kayaking was hands down the best thing we did.  The water was incredibly clear, and it was just beautiful.

But there was one excursion that made me nervous beyond description – snorkeling.

I’m not the strongest of swimmers and just really, really did not want to die.  But Katie and Erin assured me that we’d have a blast.  They described how cool it was getting to just float on our tummies, kicking around looking at colorful fish and coral.

And so, I agreed. 

In my mind, I pictured snorkeling close to the shoreline.  Safe, and with land in plain view.  So the next morning when we all climbed onto a ship, I was terrified to realize that we were actually headed OUT TO SEA.  It didn’t help that the weather was also pretty bad – rainy with big choppy waves.

Once we were officially out in the middle of nowhere, everybody else put on their gear and hopped off the side of the boat.  I stood firmly on deck, wearing my flippers and my lame little inflatable life vest, asking if there was an alternative way to enter the water.  They lowered these massive steps out the back of the boat, which I went down one step at a time on my butt.  Once I was about waist deep in the water, I turned around and asked if they had ANY additional floatation devices at all. 

The captain rolled his eyes and handed me a hot pink noodle.

I tucked the noodle under my arms and went for it while repeating to myself, “Kick your feet, breathe through your mouth, don’t die…”  I was so preoccupied with kicking and breathing and living, I didn’t even really look below me.  I don’t recall ever seeing a colorful fish.  Not one.

In the beginning, I was swimming with other people.  But at some point I stopped seeing other flippers in my view, so I put my head up to have a look around. 

I saw nothing.  No boat.  No people.  NOTHING.  I was officially lost at sea.

I had absolutely no idea which direction to swim and was terrified.

But then way off in the distance I heard a voice calling, “Pink Noodle!  Pink Noodle, hold on!  We’re coming to get you!”

It was the captain of the ship calling.  He then swam out to rescue me with one of those big red floaty things.  When he got out to me, his first words were, “What the %#@* were you trying to do – swim to Cuba?!?”  He then said that I was absolutely buying him a beer when we got back to the ship.

We got back to the ship, safe and sound.  I think Katie or Erin bought me a fruity drink for being so brave.  And the rest of the cruise was fab.  I also inherited the new nickname “Pink Noodle.”

The end.

I told this story the other day to a friend on a Gmail chat, and he pointed out something that I’ve been mulling over ever since:  my perspective from the water was totally different from the captain’s view on the ship.

I panicked basically because I had no clue where I was, right?  At sea level, my visibility was terrible.  All I could see were waves upon waves.  But from the ship, the captain saw my noodle and me much more clearly – he was the one with the accurate perspective.

Remembering this story caused me to wonder how many other times I’ve lost my bearings and panicked, simply because of my perspective.  So often, my faith can only reach as far as I can see.  

Maybe all you can see right now are waves – and maybe that’s freaking you out.  Or maybe everything is great but you just don’t see which direction your life will go next.  But in all that, just know that God sees it all.  He doesn’t just see the waves – He has a much grander perspective.  He never sets us out to sea and then leaves us to toss around with nothing but a lousy noodle.   

He sees.
He rescues. 
He guides.