During the summer when I was 16, my best friend Kelly and I spent hours and hours body surfing off the shores of Assateague Island (home of the infamous Chincoteague Horses). In fact, at one point the powers-that-be threw out the red flags warning everyone not to get in the water because of crazy tide pulls during the storm. Kelly and I just kept surfing and drifting farther and farther out to sea on the rolling ambling waves of the ocean. When we finally drifted a few miles from where we had started surfing and realized that we’d better make it in for the night, the waves curling in closer to the shore were huge and mighty. Little did we know that the rip tide that pulled the water away from the beach as the wave was crashing down was oh so dangerous.

At one point when I was caught in the undertow of the tide moving out and the wave crashing down I knew for the first time in my life how futile it was for me to fight against such a mighty force. Instead of fighting against the current, I simply relaxed and allowed the tide to pull me out as the wave came crashing down. At some point in this dance, I was effortlessly spit out on to the shore and stood up grateful that we had made it through. Of course you know that we ran back down to the end of the beach and got right back in. I know this is one of those times that I was earning some angels their wings. That and we also noticed that their was a pod of dolphins who would meet us out there in the wide dark ocean and swim along side us. We learned later that they probably kept all kinds of sharks and predatory creatures away from us then. Ahhhh youth! Can you believe how clueless??

I’m grateful that I had that wonderful weekend of experience for many reasons because I did learn a lot from it including the feeling of being stuck when you are being pulled in many different directions by opposing forces but actually when you let go and allow the tide to take you, that is when all the fun begins. Yes, my chest and face did get scraped really badly on the sand during the tide tangle and yes, I did get one of the worst sunburns I have ever had in my life from body surfing during a rainstorm but I had hours and hours of so much fun.

Am I saying for you to go behave in completely crazy ways like I did to have fun?? No! But I am saying that sometimes the very thing that may cause you the most fear just may be the very thing that opens your eyes to all that is possible when you go with the flow.

So if you ever feel like you’re caught in the undertow of life just let go and see where the tide carries you, you just may end up somewhere that you never expected.