To be Lost

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If life was an ocean, I'd be lost in it. Even now, as the waves of turmoil and change beat upon my little skiff, I fear it might sink. It's taking a lot of water in, and the sail appears to be in shreds. If only it were faster, stronger, more sea-worthy...

No.

It does not have to be all of those things. I have learned to forget praying for my own strength, forget saving for better wood and better sails. I don't need my strength, because He is strength.

So I grip wet rope and let the wind rip at my clothing and my hair and beat against my skin.

And most days, I can't imagine the other side, the emerald shores that are just beyond the horizon, the still waters that I may rest in. Most days I just feel emptied. 

Yet faith is never the assurance of things seen and never hoped for. Faith is blindness, for our Captain never called us to see. Faith is knowing that there is a lighthouse by the glint of light on the dark waves, because hope says that there is one around the bend. 

Faith is knowing that behind the clouds, there are a million stars. 

So emptiness? I count it as fullness, for I may be emptied of every eloquent word, I may be emptied of every emotion or feeling, I may be emptied of everything, stripped bare of all that I hold dear, yet I am never emptied of my God, who makes His sanctuary within me. 

So silence? I count it as deafening, for He has called me to a time of silence, that I might learn to rely on the strength of His hand, not on what I can perceive or understand. 

So being lost? I count it as being found, for when I have lost myself I have found my true identity in Christ.

The storm may rage and the waters may roil, but my Captain is sure and is true, and we are headed, steady as she goes, to the Other Side.