September is here and summer is over!
Hi, I'm Joni Eareckson Tada and I bet you are like me, always a little sad to see summer end. Some of my best memories of being on my feet all took place in summertime. My sisters, in fact, are down on the Delaware Shore this week for one last dip in the waves. If I know them, they’ll be heading to Bethany Beach. There’s a wonderful little community on the Delaware coast. There is a long sandbar on that beach and far out beyond the shore, the waves break up to 7 feet high. I treasure some pretty special memories of swimming at that beach. Now, when you’re a little girl, when you’re a child – those waves can look pretty high. When I would see them coming, my first inclination was to swim the other way real fast. But that was a mistake because if I got caught in the rolling, foamy surf, it would toss me this way and that and hold me underneath the water for what seemed to be forever.
No, I learned young that the best thing to do when those waves swelled in the distance was to spot it and to swim fast toward them and dive under the wave before it had a chance to break on top of you. I had to hold my breath long when I dove through the wave but, oh, the relief I would feel when I broke the surface and could hear that great crashing behind me. I had beat the wave, and it felt exhilarating!
Funny how the lessons you learn at a young age stick with you through the years. Because even though I don’t dive or swim anymore, I still feel like I can “beat the waves.” There’s some difficulty, some crisis, some problem rolling in from the horizon and it threatens to break over your life and looking up at those trials looming in the distance, fear seizes your throat. My first inclination – maybe yours too -- is to run the other way, but running from problems only tosses you in a foam of frustrating emotions later on.
The prophet Jonah learned this lesson when he tried to run from the clear challenge God had laid before him. But in the inhospitable confines of the belly of a whale, he cries out to God, “Lord, you hurled me into the deep and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me and threatened me and the deep surrounded me.” Jonah eventually learned that the best way to beat those waves was to face them head-on… just go ahead and dive into the problem before it has a chance to crash on top of you. And when by God's grace you come through it all? Oh, the relief when you know that problem is behind you! So the lesson is? When it seems problems are about to break on top of you, don’t bury your head in the sand. Move forward into that trial with courage and confidence.
And one more thing, since this is the last of summer, please don’t forget to stop by my radio page at joniandfriends.org and ask for my mother’s recipe card for the best Maryland crab cakes ever! Again, that’s joniandfriends.org where you can also download the recipe, if you wish. And here’s another little point of trivia, today down in Crisfield, Maryland (not far from the ocean), today… in that little town they are celebrating the National Hard Crab Derby and Fair – plenty of crab cakes will be served there, I bet. Ken and I may just go down to the ocean at sunset after work – the Pacific, not the Atlantic ocean – and when we do, I will sit by the shoreline in my wheelchair and watch the waves roll in. I will hear the thunder of the breakers and the roar of that big ocean. And if only I could swim, yep, I think I could still beat those waves!
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