God Rescued Me From the Waves

Six years ago this week, I went to the beach with a girlfriend. I pulled the big camper and we camped at Myrtle Beach. I’d never been there before and was so excited. We were hit with a huge rainstorm on the way down, and by the time I’d unhitched the camper and got it set up…the real rain began. We had inadvertently set up camp during the tail end of a hurricane.

It rained for a week straight with only the slightest break to get outside for a few minutes before it began again. The total rainfall that week was something like 24”! The lower campground flooded. A lot of people pulled out and went home. Not us. We were determined to see this through to the bitter end. The friends we met down there went home when their week was up. I asked the friend staying with me if she had anything pressing to get home to and she said no. So we signed up for another four or five days. The weather was gorgeous and the week ended on a sunnier note.

When I was browsing through photos the other day, I came across this one taken during that camping trip. It was high tide, the storm was churning off shore, and the waves were really strong. I was two years a widow and I think I still had a bit of a death wish going on. I honestly thought losing Mr. Virgo would kill me, so what difference did it make if it was the waves of grief or the waves of an angry sea?

There have been so many moments in my life that were just like standing in that roaring surf…the earth threatening to give way beneath me and send me crashing to a grisly death. The shock and betrayal of childhood sexual abuse. The pain of an unwanted divorce. The alienation of my family. The sudden loss of Mr. Virgo relatively soon after we got married. Yet…I have survived 100% of the time.

When I look at this picture, I see a woman who really didn’t have a grasp of the great danger she was in. At the same time, I see a woman who stepped WAY out of her comfort zone in order to see her own strength. Face it…I wasn’t wrapped too tight right then. But, it made a good picture and a story about living life a little on the edge.

Life was numb the first year. Life was so much harder the second year because he was really GONE and I knew it in my bones. This picture was taken at the beginning of the third year…the year of self-expression. The year of personal growth. The year of conversations with God. The year I realized He had rescued me from the waves.

As I sat around the campfire last night, I thought of this picture and smiled at the beautiful, adventurous, and brave women sitting with me. Each has had their own struggles…their own fight with the waves. And each has been lifted and carried by a loving Father when times got tough.

I love these women.