Jumping In

This year, we spent spring break at the beach: surrounded by soft, white sand, brilliant blue skies, and water. So much water. Blue. Warm. Sometimes still like a swimming pool. Other times surging with energy. This beach time was therapy for a frozen Minnesota girl.

I loved our beach time.  I loved watching my children meet the waves and play in the sand.  I got my toes wet.  I waded. I built sandcastles and searched for shark teeth and sea shells.  But I didn’t dive in.

As our time waned, I knew that I needed to get all they way in.

I’m a hesitant swimmer, mostly because I dislike being cold. Heat–good, sweat-inducing heat–will propel me into the water. Not much else will.

Thankfully, on our last day the sun had thawed me out enough that the thought of immersing myself into the still gulf waters sounded beautiful to me.

But the heat is not why I needed to dive in.

The fact that the ocean is a two-day drive away from home is partly why I needed to dive in, but not the deep down reason.

I needed to dive in because I needed to feel myself buoyed by the vast expanse of water beneath me and embraced by the endless blue dome of sky above me. I needed to feel myself sandwiched, in a way, by the magnitude and immensity of sea and sky. I needed to feel their nearness and at the same time feel my smallness.  It was just a glimpse, a fraction in time. All I needed was a taste.

I find myself coming back to this image, to this feeling. When I am praying. When I am laying awake while sleep ignores me. When anxiety tightens my chest and I start to buy into the drumming lies of “Not Enough. Not Enough.” My storm calms. I am immersed in Presence. Surrounded by the boundless, immense, love of God. “God is done unto us and all we can do is allow it.”  _ Richard Rohr, The Naked Now.

God’s love is meteoric,
    his loyalty astronomic,
His purpose titanic,
    his verdicts oceanic.
Yet in his largeness
    nothing gets lost;
Not a man, not a mouse,
    slips through the cracks.

 Psalm 36:5 (The Message)