Riptide

Hot sun, blue sky. The ocean waves were high and constant at Kuta Beach in Bali that summer of my sophomore year in college.  

It was a familiar place. Site of many family vacations. But no longer the empty beach of my childhood. 

Tourists flocked there from all over the world. And hotels lined the ocean.

In the water

Sand burned my feet that day and wading into the water brought welcome relief.  

 Kneeling in the shallows, I grabbed the flimsy plastic raft and lay across it. Kicked against the surf. Rested. Drifting over waves as they slowly built up to crest and crash.

Dad and I were in the water while Mom and the other two sat and played on the beach. It was early morning. Few tourists were out. We were trying to avoid the hottest time of day.

Drifting

After a while, Dad said we should move back sideways, parallel to the beach. We’d drifted in the tide and needed to line up with our spot where the others were.  

I slipped off the raft to walk. In what had previously been knee-deep water at best. 

I couldn’t touch the ocean floor. 

“Lord, help us”

We tried to swim. The current was hard and resistant.  

Now the beach looked distant. In the blur of my nearsightedness, I couldn’t see Mom or John or Julie. 

My dad remembers trying to figure out how to blow air into the raft that had a slow leak.  I remember praying out loud over and over. “Lord, help us.”

Now we were well beyond the breaking waves. Who could see where we were?

Rescue

Then a figure started walking in the shallows toward us. He dove into the water, over the waves and swam out to us and our leaky raft.

All I remember is that he was tall and strong. An Australian surfer. He helped Dad on one side and me on the other and swam with us toward the shore. 

He explained that a group of Indonesian kids told him there were two people out beyond the waves. In danger, they thought.  He didn’t see us, but to humor them, he started out in the direction they were pointing.

And found us. 

Rescued us.  

Sobering

We thanked the surfer profusely and headed back down the beach.

Exhausted. 

It was more than a physical exhaustion. For the first time in my life I’d felt like I was going to die.  Sobering.

I rested in our room. Then sat by the pool in the shade. Thought about my desperate cry.  

Riptide

As I prayed in the ocean, I thought rescue would be through our own swimming. With an extra push from God. 

But He sent some little kids and an Australian surfer who knew the ocean and the riptide. 

Later that same week, eleven people drowned at Kuta Beach. Tourists from around the world. I remember one was a man from France on his honeymoon.

As we processed this sad news, we learned why the undertow was unusually strong. The newspaper said a volcano had erupted deep under the ocean. 

The unknown

I never entered the ocean quite the same way again. 

The beach is still one of my favorite places to relax and walk and listen. But I’m more aware of the deep. The sometimes hidden power of that water. 

The unknown lies beneath the surface of beautiful blues and aquas and greens. Sparkling and foaming in the sunshine.

Out of my depth

Through the years there have been other riptides in my life. Occasions when I was way out of my depth. 

I’ve cried out to God. 

The answers haven’t always matched my thinking. Or been according to my time table. 

But I’ve learned to wait. Watch. 

And trust His ways. 

What about you?

Have you struggled in the depths? Fought a powerful undercurrent that was beyond your strength? How did God answer your cry?

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Feeling sand between my toes – Rushing past – Trust Me – What are we to do? – When I am afraid I will trust in You – Unexpected altar – Crushed – Waiting for the Lord –