On Perspective: The surging waves...

I ran into an acquaintance of mine today and the encounter has troubled my heart. I saw in her eyes something that I know well from my own experience: she was tired. I'm not talking about being merely physically tired, as one experiences from staying up to late, but instead a deep weariness. It's a difficult thing to see in another person. My heart aches for her.

I will never forget my experience during second year of University. It was fall semester and I had taken too many classes, of which several were upper-level (that is to say they were somewhat beyond my previous academic experiences). On top of this, I was having trouble coming to grips with the harsh reality of street life that I was seeing in the street ministry I was involved in, I had stopped going to church since I was having difficulty seeing the point in it, and my granny's health was rapidly getting worse. It was a hard fall for me. I would often wake up and anxiously get ready for school only to realize that it was still the middle of the night. I didn't sleep well; I would wake up many mornings with eyes that burned and a sore body. All I wanted was to go back to sleep and forget the problems of the world. My diet was suffering and so was I. I was constantly falling behind on my reading and my school work. I knew that something would give eventually since I could not go on like this for long. I felt like I was carrying a huge weight everywhere I went. At the end of semester I ended up failing a course, which I retook the next year, but I made it through.

It hurts me to see others who are under the wave. When you're under the wave all you can see is the wave about to crash down on you. You swim with all your might but the force of the sea is too powerful. It's dark, cold, and seems hopeless. Even the sun and sky are blotted out by the wave towering over you.

The prophet Jonah writes:

You cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.
I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight;
how shall I look again
upon your holy temple?’
The waters closed in over me;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head
at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever

I wish that I had the words to encourage her. I can't stop the 'waves and billows' from thrashing her; but I wish I could let her know that beyond that wave there is sunshine on the horizon. Eventually the storm clouds will pass and the seas will calm. Though, this is a difficult thing to remember when you're under the wave.

"And He got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm." Luke 8:24