Following

The waves were big, but the current swift. As much as I wanted to reach and ride the waves like the others, it was too much for my 12-year-old legs. My cousin, however, was older and bigger. He ran through the water with ease and dipped his shoulder to carve his way through the waves. “Get behind me,” he said with an encouraging wave, the kind a younger child lives for, and I did. No longer did I struggle. He carved a path through the current and opened a passage through the waves. Soon I was out with the others waiting for a wave to ride.

I had forgotten this moment until this morning. In my set-apart time downstairs, I thought about the fact that today’s my sobriety date. Looking back, I remember how hard this journey was when I began, how the waves were mighty and current swift, but like the day on the Jersey shore years ago, there were others who had been in the water longer than I who invited me to walk behind them. They carved a path and opened passages for me that made it possible for me to make my way out to the waves.

The image also speaks to my life of faith. Like sobriety, living a life of faith is not easy (despite what some people say). It is the life I long for, but the world’s current and my own weak legs often cause me to struggle. Fortunately, I have been “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,” which is a fancy way to say I have been given strong men and women of faith, people who were (and are) strong enough to carve paths through the current and open the waves. Through the years, when they saw me struggling they invited me to get behind them. Because of them I was able to make it out with the others. For such people, I am forever grateful.