On Seasickness.

When you're seasick, everything in life sucks.
Really.

Just picture yourself sitting outside on a ship that is rocking up and down, back and forth with your stomach going in those same directions deep inside of you.  That delicious dinner you just ate does not want to stay down.  Your stomach is churning, you eyes are tired, your head is pounding, your abs are working hard trying to keep you upright, your ears pounding from all the noise of the wind and waves and the smells of exhaust coming out right next to you.  Not very pleasant.  Every little movement you make seems to make it all so much worse.  Getting out of bed to put your shoes and jacket on is more than a chore that requires every mental, emotional and physical capability you possess to get through that task.

And the worst part - you don't know when it will end.

All you can think about when you're seasick is how much you don't want to be seasick anymore.  All you can see is the pain you feel and the deepest desire of your heart to make it stop.  You don't want to answer to anyone, you don't want to do anything, say anything or eat anything.  All you want to do is just lay there, close your eyes and hope it ends soon.

It sometimes helps to turn it into a game to see who can win - you or the sea.

At times, all you want is for it all to just come up already.  But standing on the rail with half your body hanging off the side to avoid all that comes from your mouth to go anywhere on yourself or in an unfortunate open porthole beneath your line of fire, isn't a fun experience either.  Things were meant to go down from your mouth to your stomach, not the other way around opposing gravity.

There is nothing anyone around you can do to help either.  Sure, they can give you a glass of water, a towel to clean any leftovers off your face, or a piece of toast to refill your stomach.  But they can't take the pain away.

I know, this is a really good encouragement for anyone who might want to live on a boat...

Again, when you're seasick, everything in life sucks.
Really.

But there is something to always be redeemed with seasickness.

As odd as that might seem.

Eventually, the ship will stop and the rocking will cease or the feeling will pass.  And when that moment comes, life becomes beautiful again.  It really is the best feeling in the world to have gotten passed the seasickness to a point when you simply don't feel sick anymore.  The boat might still be rocking but your stomach has settled, you can breath, you can move, you can laugh, and you can't help but smile.  The simple tasks that took every effort you possess to accomplish seems so easy and you enjoy them so much.  And it's because of one simple realization - you don't feel seasick anymore.

The other day, we were sailing from Malta to Gozo which is a pretty short distance but we took our time and went the long way.  However, it was a Force 6 with strong winds coming from the direction we wanted to go and the swell was quite large.  I got seasick and I didn't like it.  But as I was sitting on the side of the wheelhouse on the leeward side (just in case something came out so it wouldn't blow back at my face or on Tori who was laying on the deck also feeling the same way...) I came to a realization.  I knew there would be a moment when I wasn't sick anymore and it would be a glorious occasion.  I've experienced the greatness that comes from going from being seasick to not.  This day, I realized that it's not just a sailing thing, but a life thing.

I tend to feel seasick often.  (And I'm not just talking about when I'm on a boat in Force 6 seas with very large swell).  There's a lot of days in my life when all I can see is how sick I feel.  The things I once enjoyed don't seem so nice anymore and I can't appreciate them like I once always did.  I don't want to be where I am with who is around me doing what I'm doing.  I just want to go home.  Those are not fun emotions to be having every day.  But when that moment comes when I'm not seasick, I will be able to appreciate this life that God has graciously given me so much more than I could ever have had I not experienced the seasickness.

I'm not going to be seasick forever.  It will pass and when it does, in that moment, life is going to be so good.  I know there will be another sail to come, another storm to pass, another bout of seasickness to make it through, but I'm looking at the right now.

That moment is coming.  I'm tasting glimpses of it more and more each day.
That moment is almost here and I wait for it with anticipation and excitement.

 

Swimming, Stories and A Yes.

I will be honest and say that the past months of my life have not been the easiest.  They've been hard.  Very hard.  There are a great deal of causes for this hardship and probably even more reasons for it all than I realize.

For quite a while, the negative side of things has been all that my mind and emotions have allowed me to see and feel.  That's not a normal thing for me.  Once I would begin this downward spiral in my thinking and feeling, I would just keep going down and down with no hope of an end until I would be too exhausted that my body finally let me fall asleep.  I would wake the next morning feeling the aftermath of getting hit by a bus.  (Not that I actually know what that really feels like...)  The heaviness of what I was carrying kept pressing down on me and it was all I could think about.

The stress, the things that were not going how I wanted them to go, the things that were changing that I didn't want to change, the homesickness, loneliness, hopelessness, anger, the hurt, anxiety, pressure, the fear, the responsibility I was too scared to bear.

All day.
Every day.

I was exhausted and finding no rest from all the wresting that was going on inside no matter how much I slept and ran and did puzzles and went on long walks through open fields.

I felt like things were never going to turn around.  I felt that it was just going to be like this from now on until I finished my commitment and could move on and I was just going to have to live with it and stick it out no matter how much I didn't want to, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much it was turning me into someone I didn't like.

But, like every other time I have ever freaked out over something, after hours, days, weeks and months of crying out to God, the turn came.

Well, it had to come several times for it to actually stick but it came.

I started to breathe.

I will mention just 3 of these turns among the many.

Swimming.

I've always like water.  (I've not always liked drinking it but that's just when I was a kid and all I wanted to drink was Sunny D...)  I've always enjoyed going to the beach and playing in the waves, rafting down a river, jumping off a cliff into that river, being pulled on a tube being a boat.  Lots of fun.  But I've never really been the best at actual swimming, you know like the breaststroke or one of those fancy ways of swimming.  I could never get the breathing right.

Well, I'm currently on the small island of Gozo in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and it's summertime.  That means that it's hot all the time.  I don't like heat.  So the only way to cool off, is to go swimming.  Whether that's in the small pool in the backyard, or going on an adventure to find a

sweet cove and risk the jellyfish, swimming is just the best thing ever.  And I'm getting better at it.  I'm learning to breathe.  I do it every day and I love it.  Literally every day.  I have fully embraced the siesta lifestyle (which I now fully understand) so after my post-lunch nap, I go for a swim and again, it's the best thing ever.

It gets my body moving (like running, but there is no running in Gozo unless you like hills, heat and humidity which I do not) and this makes me happy.  Very happy.

Stories

I've recently begun a project that will probably take me a very long time but I'm ok with that.  I've begun writing stories.  My stories.  I've always loved writing.  I still have a collection of stories which I wrote in 6th grade (one of which is a remake of 2 classic Disney stories entitled, "Cinderblock and the Seven Dogs".  Yes.  That is a fact.  It's a bit of a mash up between the story of Cinderella and Snow White.)

I find that I express myself much better in words written than in words spoken.  (How I was expressing myself in the story of Cinderblock, I have no idea.  But then again, I was 11 years old.)

So with this project, I'm attempting to write all the stories that I can remember from the last 3 and 1/2 years of my life that I've been with YWAM, both in England and with Next Wave and the places in between.  That's a lot of stories and places and people and life lessons learned.  I love it when I write one story and then halfway through that one, I'm reminded of another one, then another and it just explodes on the page.  (You can start to read a few of them here - http://aneverendingblankpage.blogspot.com/)

I want to write a good story with this life that I've been given and writing the stories I have already lived have shown me the good that has been my life so far.

A Yes.

When things are uncertain, I freak out.  And I mean, really freak out.  But when things are clear, I can be calm and can breathe and can take on whatever challenge comes.

There have been a lot of uncertainties with what's happening next, some circumstantial that were not under my control, but most in my heart.  I didn't know which way I wanted to go.  There was finally a yes to these circumstances and my heart finally decided to say a firm yes to what I felt God has been asking of me all this time no matter how much I fought it.  I am calm (for the most part...) and I can breathe with a readiness to take on the challenges ahead.

Finally, the peace and the joy came and then the final turn.

It's been a very tough road to get to this point and there were days when I wondered if I ever would.  But the cries were heard and the prayers answered.

So I'm jumping in.

Again.

I'm jumping into the unknown, into the water, into the story, into something I know I'm absolutely capable of (thank you Philippians 4:13) but also into failures, into fear, into inevitable challenges that will test me far beyond anything I've experienced.

I'm jumping anyways.

Jumping, trusting that God is good.

All the time.