staying afloat and loving it...

I have been fortunate…spoiled really, by the ability to have family and friends here in SA for Christmas and the “holiday season.”  To be totally honest, it has been a lot of relaxing and non-scheduled, no-responsibility time.  The week before Christmas I had two close friends, both who are stationed over-seas with the military, come visit for a few days.  We were able to have some good fellowship together as well as spend some of our time volunteering at a couple different charities.  After the new year, Austin, Zach, Dan, my dad and I enjoyed a 3 day excursion to Kruger National Park where we enjoyed lots of different wildlife and beautiful scenery. 

I have just again begun working (yes South Africa take an entire month to chill out over Christmas).  Here’s what my “job” looks like: building relationships with the three charities LCF supports to serve them and help them become self-sustaining; expand the charities LCF works with; help organize three different events – a fund-raising banquet, MIA (a mission event and commissioning of hundreds of volunteers) and a week long evangelical sports camp; and in my spare time coach a boys basketball team in Klerksdorp (and maybe help with a couple teams in the township). 

It has been more of a blessing than I can tell you to have most of my family here, but unfortunately they can’t stay forever.  My mom and dad went back home on the 12^th and my brother will soon follow on the 24^th of January.

Driving mom and dad to the airport to fly back home I had the moment of panic; the moment where you realize that you are being left to “tread the water by yourself.”  Not only by yourself, but in a foreign country without knowing for how long you will be treading the water or how.  The best way I know to describe how I felt is the feeling you get when you fall waterskiing, wakeboarding or tubing and for a split second all you see is the boat flying away from you as you sit in the vastness of open water by yourself. 

Anyone who has fallen off anything behind a boat knows what I’m talking about.  The minute you make it to the surface after falling, the first thing you look for is the boat that seconds ago was your lifeline; that which was the source of your great adventure, but more than that, your ability to stand above the water.  In a split second your lifeline is gone, driving off into the abyss (or so it seems) without you.  Not only does the boat move forward, but you are left alone, floating in a body of open water with only the lifejacket you wear to keep you afloat in a bit of a panic wondering what is below you that could pull you under, and wanting to frantically swim back to the boat, knowing full well you could never catch it. 

For a moment as I was driving, I felt like I was about to fall off the boat, knowing full well the loneliness, fear and panic that immediately follows detachment. 

The loneliness that there’s no one else there; that some journeys in life I have to walk myself.  In order to get where God has me going, sometimes I have to tread the water without anyone beside me; no one to hold me up.  Just me.  Yet, me in a lifejacket, the very device purposed to keep me afloat when nothing else is there to hold on to; the lifejacket that I don’t have to hold, but it holds me.   

Commence fear…the fear of all that is unknown lying just under the surface.  The things that could overwhelm and overtake me; the questions, the things that are too big for me to handle, the unforeseen events, the what if’s, how’s and why’s all converging in my mind at once to create the panic. 

In the moment of panic a flood of thoughts and emotions, ‘what was I thinking moving to Africa…so far away?’; ‘how am I going to do this?’; and the big one: ‘what do I do now?’. 

Of course the reality that the boat isn’t leaving forever and that your lifejacket really is all you need, calms the fear and panic.  Breathing returns as a secondary function, and you remember the ride you were just taken on, and the one you will soon again embark on, are worth the moments of panic.  Confidence arises, perhaps not in your ability to get out of the water, but in the lifejacket to hold you up and in the lifeline to return and pull you up out of the water on another ride, not the same ride, but an adventure nonetheless.      

I feel like my life is almost entirely one big question mark; like I’m trying to reach the bottom of the lake in order to stand up, but I just keep kicking and treading water because I can’t quite reach.  In the few moments when I get really homesick the reality of the many unknowns can be very overwhelming bringing both fear and a bit of panic.  Most the time I can shrug my shoulders and have peace just knowing God is my lifeline and He’s driving the boat.  Trust God; have faith…It is the only thing I know to do in order to enjoy the ride and take it all in.  This ability is only by the grace of God, believe me…I want to know; but, through God’s grace there is faith and that affords me the freedom to live…even in the unknown. 

There is simply too much divine beauty, wonder and love in a day to miss a single one.  I was reminded of this after reading my friend Jason Greer’s book, “Very Much Better” (if you haven’t read it, please do yourself a favor, go buy and read it).  It is his story of life with cancer as an 11-12 year old boy.  I’ll leave you with this quote from his book:

“A real encounter with faith is like the first gasp after a lifetime of restrained breath, the beginning of a divine respiration that awakens the senses to an all-new passion of skin and heart, thought, and desire.  Faith is the craving for profound experience.”       

Ok people…go live the day!...by faith, trusting God, love outside yourself and ENJOY the beauty and wonder that surrounds every minute of your day.  Love you!