Coincidence, Boats, and a Chance to Walk on Water

September 28, 2016.Reading time 5 minutes.

I peek over the edge and find the billowing blue ocean enticing, but scary.

Sit back down in the humdrum. Catch my breath. Look away. The wood floor of the boat holds strength, stability, and what is known. The boat is safe.

The sea… It is random. It swells and falls. It sucks some would-be swimmers underneath its whitecaps and waves.

But some walk outside the boat. Oh, how I envy them.

The bills are paid, the seas are calm, the boat is comfortable… After all, I have responsibilities. And the waves rock me to sleep. Year after year.

I read a fantastic book a few years ago. It was so good I actually read it twice. It was the kind of book that challenges comfort zones and encourages leaps of faith. If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat spoke to me and I started looking for my chance to climb over the edge. A couple of international mission trips got me thinking of ways to climb out of the boat. Being cautious – I peeked, sat back down, and caught my breath.

The bills are paid, the seas are calm, the boat is comfortable… After all, I have responsibilities. And the waves rock me to sleep. Year after year.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with stability. We all need some level of stability in our lives. I’m grateful for the blessings of a good job and a nice place to rest my aging bones. But some people seem to have a passion that overrides their need for an anchor. They gladly walk out onto the water and test their limits.

And sometimes, we have no choice in the matter. Sometimes we are chucked headlong into the water with no regard for our safety. Job loss, relationship turmoil, injury, sickness, death… Especially death. Those things push us out where we aren’t comfortable and test our ability to swim or confirm our propensity to sink. How long can you dog paddle?

Speaking of dogs, my wife and I were invited to the premiere of a video for an animal rescue initiative in California. It was an amazing event hosted by incredible people who are dedicated to a cause. We were invited to church on Sunday by one of these people and I remember saying as we walked into the church that I did not believe in coincidence. No coincidence. Hmmm. Okay – so let’s count the happenstance of the following hour.

The pastor happened to be John Ortberg, the author of the aforementioned book.
His sermon was entitled, “It’s Okay to Not be Okay,” during which he told the story of Job and his loss.
He also talked about his own personal loss – his daughter’s recent loss of a baby.

I couldn’t get all of this out of my head. After all, having just been tossed headlong into the seas, I am not okay. I likely won’t ever be okay again. The pastor wasn’t speaking directly to me. He had no way of knowing about my loss of Kylie. In fact, he couldn’t know I would be in the congregation. Further, contrary to all that is wise but in line with the book he wrote years ago, I have just left my boat – my stable job of over twenty years to fight childhood cancer full time. I start on Monday as the Director of Communications for CURE Childhood Cancer. I am nervous, anxious, and utterly thrilled. I’ve stepped out of the boat to follow a passion I could never have dreamed I would have.

Let’s hope I can stay afloat.

The bills are paid, the seas are calm, the boat is comfortable… And I’ve left it behind.

A Necklace from Kylie

September 14, 2016.Reading time 5 minutes.

I’ve never worn a necklace. I don’t mind them on men as long as they aren’t the Mr. T starter kit size. I have just never found one that suited my tastes.

In my first job, there was an accountant who had a chain so large it could be seen under his button down shirt. This was before the days of casual dress and this guy’s pendant literally pushed his tie an inch off his chest. I heard he got indicted for embezzlement after I left the company, which should be a lesson to us all – hide a big, gaudy chain under dress clothes, go to jail.

I did have a quest for the perfect necklace, though, and along the way I recruited a partner. I am not a surfer, but if I ever found a shark’s tooth on the beach I would get it set on a leather chain and wear it. I know you can buy them, but it isn’t the same as finding one in the sand on a morning walk.

On our annual trip to the white sands of Florida, Kylie and I would scour the beach for a shark’s tooth. She was the only other morning person in the family and a willing cohort to any adventure. Shark-tooth hunting became an event for us – a big one for me, a little one for her. We often ran to what looked like our quarry, but upon closer inspection ended up to be shells or rocks. Sadly, we never found a shark’s tooth. We spent many mornings combing the beach. Neither of us considered that our Friday morning walk in the sand in the summer of 2013 would be the last chance to find one together. Those thoughts don’t ever cross your mind as the sun rises across the horizon and the warm surf laps at your toes.

The consolation in not achieving a goal is that there is always next year. But that isn’t always true – next year isn’t a sure thing.

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Those walks could be called futile in their result, but they weren’t. They are precious memories of time well-spent despite the fact that I do not own a shark’s tooth.

I do have a necklace, though.

It is nothing like I ever expected. A shark’s tooth makes one look manly – like a modern day pirate who extracted it from the beast barehanded and has a gaping scar across his ribs to prove it. That’s the story I would tell. But no, my necklace is not manly. And the scar that accompanies it is not visible.

My necklace contains three yellow beads strung on a leather cord. It cries wimpy… until you know its significance. For these aren’t ordinary beads. They are compacted flowers – making it even less masculine, if that were possible. They smell heavenly. The flowers that comprise them were collected from Kylie’s funeral – an event that ripped out my heart and left a scar that will never heal. Ironically, my beads rest just above that wound.

So we may not have found our shark tooth, but Kylie is a part of the only necklace I’ve ever worn. I love wearing it, too. It has become an item of comfort that often brings her image back to my lonely mind.

I love my necklace.

The big musclebound guy at the gym who chuckled at my feminine necklace may not be a fan. Thirty seconds into my explanation he was sobbing like a baby with all of his biceps and pectorals twitching and shaking uncontrollably. Any more questions, meathead?

So if you run into me, and wonder about my necklace, go ahead and ask. I’ll introduce you to my little girl who loved yellow and left me before we found a shark’s tooth to string.