Dear E-Flash Friends;
My daughter, Rachel, and I were riding a wave runner a few days ago and after a while Rachel started to get bored. You know how it is, right? Zipping across the waves--on what amounts to a motorcycle on the water--at 35-40 mph . . . that can get a little boring. After all, wave runners don't come equipped with DVD players.
Well, I decided to let Rachel take the controls of the craft. I knew that would make things a little more interesting for her.
(I know, you can probably see this one coming, but don't get ahead of me.)
Rachel had the controls and we were moving pretty slowly--which believe it or not--is much more unstable on a wave runner than if you are moving quickly. At one point, we were not only moving slowly, but we were sideways to the waves rather than facing straight into them. This is, also, a very unstable position. Well, sure enough, a wave hit us and we lost our balance and got thrown off of the wave runner.
Wave runners have a very important and helpful design feature that involves wearing a wrist band which is connected to a "kill" switch on the craft. So, if you fall off the vehicle, the engine automatically stops and the unmanned wave runner doesn't take off and leave you stranded in the water.
There we were, floating in the Gulf of Mexico, about 600 yards from shore--wearing very buoyant life vests--about 10 feet away from our wave runner. This, actually, is not a difficult predicament, it's happened to me several times before. However, if you've never experienced it, I suppose it might sound a little unnerving.
Rachel immediately grabbed on to me with an iron claw grip.
I said, "Rachel, be calm, it's alright. Just relax and hold on to me and I will swim over to the wave runner."
After about 30 seconds of swimming and pulling Rachel, I said, "Hey Rachel, I still want you to be calm, but you can kick your feet a little bit, too."
We climbed back on board our craft, but as I was pulling Rachel out of the water, back up on to the wave runner, we had one of those moments where we began laughing--the whole incident suddenly became very amusing to us. And it was extremely difficult to try to pull Rachel up on to the wave runner while we were both laughing.
You say, "So, Dan, what's the moral of the story? What's the lesson in this modern day parable?"
I really don't have one. I was just hoping that you would read the story and find it enjoyable and amusing and that you would say to yourself, "Boy, it will be great to see Dan and Nadia and Rachel again, pretty soon." Because I am definitely looking forward to seeing all of you!
Love and Blessings,
Dan
P.S. Quite a few folks from our Youth group, along with several adult counselors left, today, for the Church of God International Youth Convention in San Antonio, Texas. We are very excited about their participation in this event and are hoping that this will be a time of great spiritual growth and challenge and awakening for everyone who is going. Please pray that they will have safe travel, spiritually receptive hearts, and lots of fun. Actually, I'm pretty confident about the "fun" part.
P.P.S. Here's a wonderfully encouraging passage . . .
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28
P.P.P.S. Hope you're planning to be at church this Sunday, July 13th. Chris is talking about something really important, "Loving Jesus With Your Whole Heart". It's going to be great!
www.VisitUsOnline.org
