The sleepless sun rises east of our campsite. It was our final, close out day paddling. Our fifth day of our island circumnavigation goal. Every morning we would wake up before the sun, and be packed up by the time it peered through the eastern hills.
On the fifth day, the conditions did not appear promising. The wind was blowing angrily and the sun was in and out of covering clouds. The stale wind was our biggest competitor. As we launched and paddled out of the cove, the wind would blow whitecaps in our direction. This would keep us wet, cold, and lethargic. After we switched directions to paddle to the next beach, where we would take our first break, the wind and waves were against us. The whitecaps would push us away while the storm overhead would keep us damp.
After intense paddling and downward attitudes, we made it to the beach. We stopped, beached, and rested for about ten minutes. However, when it was time to get back in the boats to paddle, the wind had stopped. Not only had the wind stopped, but the potentially worrisome, dark, and heavy clouds overhead had almost entirely burned away. It was similar to Jesus’ parable about him calming the storm on the boat. In this story, the others on the boat with Jesus were in a similar downward spiral within their mental picture.They started becoming fearful and panicking. This is followed by Jesus saying to the other men a really powerful sentence. Peace be still.
Peace be still. That is exactly what we had just seen for ourselves. We started becoming fearful and worrisome of the future of our kayaking excursion and then it came over us. Peace be still. I am so grateful that I got to experience this for myself. It brought so much clarity about how stillness and peace can seem like an anomaly, but in reality, it was there the whole time. It just had to be discovered.
Bennett