As the days trickle down towards our World Race launch, I am getting more and more questions about how I am feeling. Nervous? Excited? Afraid? I have struggled to find something to say that accurately describes how I feel. It is all of these things. Something more. Something else. In the absence of words, an image keeps coming to mind. Maybe it isn’t perfect. But something about it refuses to leave me.
Last summer, I went with our high school youth to a week-long discipleship camp on the beach. One morning, I came down to the beach to see the sunrise with some of the youth (picture below).
How do I feel? I feel like I am standing on the beach, looking at the ocean. My feet are inches into the tide, so that tiny waves sporadically bury my feet in water. Looking out into a vast expanse. Gazing into forever. Unable to really comprehend how far those waters go and what adventures, what celebrations, what dangers lurk in the unseen pathway beyond the horizon. Looking at the ocean, it is easy to be humbled. Easy to acknowledge how small and weak I am. Yet there is something comforting in the greatness. Something about the vastness that is awe-inspiring. There is something about just being inches into the shore, something about even being able to gawk at the incredibility of it all, that fills me with an absurd sense of grand purpose. There is a stillness to it as well. Something a lot like peace. It disallows me to dwell on what lies behind me, beckoning my affection ahead.
Mostly, it feels like joy. When I look down at my feet and watch the mini-waves slowly sweep over them. It feels good. I don’t fully understand how, but the sand gives way and I sink into it a little. It is impossible to keep from smiling as I wiggle my toes free and step aside, leaving a moist footprint, and expectantly wait for it all to happen again. It is amazing to think of how little water (compared to the millions of gallons swirling in the colossal ocean) it requires to completely drench me. Just a tiny wave of it can start to bury me, and it leaves a unique footprint indention to mark where I was when it overcame me. And if all of this happens when I am just inches in, what happens when I venture out further? What joy awaits when I get out to the furthest horizon I can perceive, only to discover it is just the beginning?
And the light. Oh, The Light! From a huge source millions of miles away, the light makes the whole scene visible. It makes the whole vision possible. It reflects off of millions of molecules, sparkling in the ocean. And, dare I hope, I feel its radiance reflecting off me. The light seems to be whispering promises of a boat. An approaching vessel that will drag me beyond the fiercest waves, amongst the wild unknown, in to the boundless glories ahead. I don’t see it, but it is close. The coming vessel will move me through unimaginable waters, farther from home than I have ever dared to dream. The adventures ahead are too unique to imagine, too new to be expected, too great to quantify. But the light. Oh, The Light! Light will always be shining, always reflecting off the particles along the path, causing me to squint and see my surroundings differently, carefully.
If it is possible, I am ecstatic about the promise of the vessel, coming to take me on a journey to deeper waters and, at the same time, I am perfectly content with where I currently am – standing in awe on the shore, thankful for everything that has happened because it led me to this magical place. My mind is blown by the beauty before me, my heart accelerated by the potential image beyond the horizon, my soul thankful for being reared in the safety of shore.
When it comes to describing how I feel, I don’t know that this is any more clear than my inadequate words. But as of now, as of today, I feel something like a man looking at the ocean…
