where the tide flows

I surfed today for the first time.  Boy, was it an experience.  I am no professional, by far, and my skills of balance still need work.  But to get on that wave—to be able to ride the wave for longer than two seconds—it may have been only twice in a series of attempts, but man, did it make the experience.
I was a bit concerned that I would graduate Loma without riding a wave.  It’s ironic.  Point Loma Nazarene University is known to be one of the best campuses to surf in America.  It’s situated right at the beach.  However, I rarely go in the water… sadly ironic.

As I sat on the cliffs as my friends continued to surf, I began to rethink upon the experience.  Being new to the art, I was so awkward.  It was so difficult, trying to fight the waves and move the board.  In the midst of it all, you start to wonder how much control you really have.  Think about even the professionals.  I wonder how much control they truly have.  They don’t control the waves.  They dont control the tides.  In the ocean, how much control does one truly have?

Then I thought about life.

How much control do we really have?  Material possessions are sold.  They burn away.  We can try to preserve the things we cherish, but everything is subject to entropy.  All in all, they too will fade.
Transcend tangible items.  What about relationships?  Does an individual have control over them?  Sure, they may have control over their actions which are a major part of the relationship, but they do not control the variables.  They do not control the loved one.  Even beyond that, they do not control the parents nor the community they may be a part of that bears influence to the relationship.
Plans.  Another concept that is not fully in our control.  Life has so many factors that plans become so maliable.  People try to insert room for error in their itineraries, but in the end, they have no control of how wide that error can be.

I’ve said before that I feel that my life is divided into chapters.  Last December it was a storm.  This summer, it’s been a hurricane.  I’ve sat and contemplated all the things that I had planned—things I thought I had control over—and was blown away.  My whole summer was set for certain goals, and life gave its own surprise and blew them away.

Before spring semester of school ended, I had my mind set on taking summer classes.  I was not positive if I needed them—seeing how I dropped my second major in Music Education—but they would still ease the load during the school year.  I was soley devoted to this idea.  In turn, I made sure that I couldn’t do other things I wanted to partake in.  It was worth it, after all.
My time to register comes and there is only one class left that I need:  Communications/Speech103.  One class, one slot open:  a night class on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6P-9P which would end the week before the fall semester starts.  I didn’t know if this was something to be irked or grateful about.  Whatever it be, I took the class, and was stoked to get it out of the way.
Weeks pass and I get myself mentally planned for school.  I created routes to save money and time.  The plan was to go with my Father to his work downtown.  From there, I would walk to Loma, work on music until 4P, walk to City College, take my course, then be picked up.  It was a lot of walking, but it would save money.

Everything was set.  I was all prepared and ready to get my mind mentally active.  The saturday before school comes around and I get a letter in the mail from the San Diego Community College District.  I open it up, and it’s a check for $93.  That’s odd.  That’s the same amount of money I paid for Communications.  So I go online to double-check.  The class I signed up for was gone—it was cancelled.
To many people, this news would bring happiness.  More time for relaxation over summer.  To me, I was in shambles.  I had set this whole summer revolved around the idea that I was going to take summer courses.  In fury, I left the house to go for a walk.  During the walk, everything flashed in my mind.  Everything that I missed out.  I missed out on auditioning for the Summer Ministries Team—an amazing fun music internship, which also bears fair pay.  I missed out on getting the on-campus paint crew job.  Worst of all, I missed out on three out of four of my friend’s weddings—which includes the roadtrips there.

I was distraught.

I didn’t understand why this happened.  I did not feel any hinderances when I signed up for classes.  I felt like this was the right thing to do.  I felt like I built my house on solid rock, yet in the end, everything I hoped for was blown away.  During this time (from late June to early July), I began asking questions of the extreme:  is it worth planning anything?  I even got to the point where I asked:  is it worth hoping?  I’ve always found myself as a person who sought hope in the midst of darkness.  This, however, was definitely a dark moment where I couldn’t see light. 
While this happened, I was barraged from other corners.  Times are tough with this recession but I feel like I hear everyone say that they are tight financially.  I don’t doubt them, but it feels like that phrase has become a relative term.  All I know is that at this point, my family was hit hard monetarily.  Someone we were working with did not file certain papers properly and a large sum of money we were expecting did not show up on time.  On top of the financial issues, there were familial issues as well going on the household.  All the sweltering problems were just too much for me to be able to see any light.

Life continued, but the burden of questions increased.  Ever since that walk after finding out the bad news, I was constantly trying to see the beauty in this mess.  I feel like every pain has beauty in it.  But at the moment, I just couldn’t see it.

Then one day, a friend of mine updated her status for the first time, bearing this quote: ‎”Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”  That was a refreshing drink of water.  It made me think.
Later, I was at JHill’s church, listening into Pastor Dan speak.  Near the end of his sermon, he quoted german theologian Helmut Thielicke.

“Anybody who loves must always be prepared to have his plans interrupted. We must be ready to be surprised by tasks which God sets for us today. God is always compelling us to improvise. For God’s tasks always have about them something surprising and unexpected, and this imprisoned, wounded, distressed brother, in whom the Saviour meets us, is always turning up on our path just at the time when we are about to do something, just when we are occupied with altogether different duties. God is always a God of surprises.”

There was one more quote that I found that truly hit home.  There was an interview with Switchfoot talking about what it means to hope.  Here, Jon Foreman concluded “Without hope, I guess you can’t have that word: tragedy.”  (To see the entire interview)  Foreman was talking about the idea that the term tragedy means something that isn’t right; that shouldn’t be—yet it still exists.  Thus, to say something is tragic is to say that there is something better.  There is something that is just.  Something that is not in our grasp yet, but it exists. 

I still am trying to seek the beauty in this problem.  Maybe I’ve found it.  Maybe I haven’t.  I have done quite a few things that I would not have done if I were partaking in summer school.  I know that I wouldn’t have underwent this process of excavation and rediscovery in what it means to hope.

I know that this issue of control is somehting everyone faces in their life.  To many, it’s a constant battle to understand why plans don’t work out the way they want them panned out to be.  But in truth, we don’t have control.  Beyond our actions, we have control over nothing.  We are not masters of anything, but servants and co-creators.  It isn’t until we realise that God is truly the ones who can move plans and change the hearts of men that we see where our next act is to lie.  Plans are good.  They help keep things orderly.  But if our plans do not align with God’s, then don’t be crushed if your plans go amiss.

Relaxing on those cliffs today, things connected.  Life is just like the ocean.  We have no control over the waves in our lives.  We have no control over the civilians that may accidentally get in our way.  We have no control over the rocks being where they are.  We just have our board and going with whatever the ocean gives us.

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