grace is an ocean

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“If his grace is an ocean we’re all sinking.” 

This is a line from a David Crowder song that I did not fully comprehend until I was in fact sailing for days in the middle of the ocean with nothing but blue in every direction as far as the eye could see.  I grew up my whole life on the coast of Maine and have been very familiar with looking into that distant horizon sometimes not knowing when the sky ends and the water begins.  I have had debates with friends from landlocked states that insist their lake beaches are as good as the ocean but I have always believed there is something about standing on the edge of a continent looking out to the unknown and knowing that the closest bit of land is across the vast ocean.

I have only just begun to appreciate how vast these oceans are.  Standing up on the bow – that’s the front of the ship –

tempted to say “I’m flying Jack I’m flying,” I look over at the glorious shades of blue and turquoise and see how the sun glimmers off each wave as it slowly rises and falls.  There are depths below us (maybe not directly) that hide sea creatures that have never been discovered.  There are trenches and valleys and land formations that have never been seen.  In these fathoms below (cue The Little Mermaid intro) I gain a small perspective of the amount of grace the Father has for me…

The other day I entered into a fight I knew I would never win. I was upset and angry and my emotions got the best of me. Normally I steer away from a losing argument. I don’t like to be wrong – who does? In the end though, when I am arguing with the Creator of the universe and the One who holds my future in his hands I’m just not going to win.

I have been sick of growing and sick of trusting and decided to tell the Lord but like I said it was a losing argument the whole way.  It has been a rough couple of weeks for all of us.  Most of the crew are reassigned to positions that they would never have imagined working, myself included.  The hours are hard, the work is hard and to top it off we aren’t even allowed to tie a rope to the stern – that’s the back of the ship –

and go tubing in the wake on our days off.  Plus, I have had a difficult time assimilating my closely knit family of forty into a crew of two hundred keeping in mind that it will double by the time we are in Madagascar (PS- that is where we are headed – more on that to follow).

After venting out my frustrations and being grateful I serve a God who will not smite me for approaching in such a state but will show me grace, mercy and love until He gets me through it I realized once again that this is where the Lord has called me.  No, it doesn’t look like I imagined.  No, I’m not headed where I thought I would be going.  No, I’m not even working where I thought I would be working.  But none the less this is where I am and I know “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you” Deuteronomy 31:8a.  Does that mean I magically accept it and am grateful and happy all the time?  No, it is a process.

The thing about the ocean and grace alike is that it will slowly work away at the hard edges and smooth you into a masterpiece.  There is a beach in Acadia National Park in Maine that is composed of the smoothest rocks and boulders you could ever imagine whose edges have been worn down over time. It is a hard and sometimes painful process but when the sheer force of the ocean continually bombards the earth no matter how hard the rock or surface is the ocean is going to win.

In a way that is how I feel when I am bombarded by the grace of God in all its abundant strength and vastness.  No matter how many times I fail, His grace is there washing over me with power and strength to rub away the edges and make me who I am meant to be.  And the vastness – well this grace is not just for me.  There is grace for the whole of mankind enough for us all to be sinking and that is a beautiful reality.

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“How He Loves”
(originally by John Mark McMillan)

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us, oh,
Oh, how He loves us,
How He loves us all

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If his grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
And Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about the way…

He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves.

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at all times

It is days like these when I don’t feel like writing that most of the time I probably have the most to say.  I’m going into week five of sitting in the Canary Islands waiting to leave for Africa.  Sure the first few weeks were nice.  The beach is great.  It is actually the closest thing I’ve seen to a New England coast line probably ever – substitute pink granite and glacial erratics for volcanic formations and you have a wonderfully rocky view. 

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

              Kittery, Maine

There are other benefits for still being here.  We get real milk.  It may still come in a box but at least it needs to be refrigerated after opening and it has dairy in it and sometimes we even get to churn it into fresh butter.  Also, the fruit and veggie selection has been pretty fantastic.  All in all I should be grateful for this tropical “vacation” after the trying and exhausting summer I just had and I guess I am – but my heart yearns for Africa. 

I walk through the empty hospital wards and remember what they sound like full of laughing children, full of healing, full of life.  I see nurses working as deck hands and engineers and know I’m not alone in my eager expectation to finally be on our way.  I wait for my assignment in the dining room to begin as the work preparing the lab has finally come to an end.  Week after week we sit.  Problem after problem arise and we are asked to trust.  Be faithful and trust what the Lord is doing, that he is in control and he has a plan.

Isn’t this what I learned this summer?  Shouldn’t I already know how to do this?  I guess it is a lot easier said than done and when it comes down to it, trusting may just be the hardest thing the Lord ever asks of us.  We are not called to trust some of the time or when it is easy or with the little things or with the things that we can control so trusting isn’t really that big of a deal.  We are called to trust in ALL circumstances, in all things, big and small when our world seems to be falling apart at the seams; when Ebola is tormenting Africa; when ISIS is unleashing hell in the Middle East; when there are earthquakes and typhoons and everything under the sun appears the be unhinged…

Yes, even then we are to trust.

I guess the thing that makes this doable in any way shape or form is we are not called to a blind trust.  We are given full assurance that the Lord is in control, he does have a plan and that he is faithful to his children.  So, as I sit here waiting to sail and waiting for the hospital to once again be full of patients I will once again do my best to lay it all before him and trust him with all things at all times.

“Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” Psalm 62:8

 

 

 

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