Come Sail Away

I am stunned by the responses to this new blog. I told my wife that I will write about "the flashes of light" I keep getting every day. That means these posts may appear at times to be very random. I thought I would be updating you on the Zoom story but something else popped into my head this morning, so here goes......

When I was a teenager, I listened to "Styx" on a daily basis. There were two songs that I listened to over and over, "Come Sail Away" and "You're Fooling Yourself". One song was about escaping and the other about overcoming anger and getting back on your feet. This group is still around today. A few years ago, my wife took me to see them live. It is one of the best birthday presents she has ever given me.

As I reflect on my life, the best way to describe it is to imagine that I am in a boat with my wife and we are sailing away. There is no motor in the boat and we need to rely on the wind to get to our destination. Sometimes the winds blow with hurricane force and other times we are just sitting there in this large body of water with not even a breeze to move us along.

If you are a type A personality, sitting in a sail boat with no wind can sometimes be very annoying. A couple of times my wife told me she was jumping out of the boat. Did you ever see the movie, "Overboard" with Goldie Hawn? When she jumps out of the boat, her true love jumps in to rescue her. I told my wife that if she ever jumps ship, I will be right behind her with a life preserver. The truth is that I need her in the boat with me to complete the journey we are on.

I will never forget how this boat idea started....I was on vacation at Christian camp (see earlier post) with my family and friends from the hood. My wife and I thought we were moving along at a good pace with our lives but we both felt we were not doing everything God was asking of us. We asked the camp director to pray with us after telling him that we were a little bit afraid about letting God have complete control of our lives. In our prayer, we asked for our "sails" to be at full mast and for our fears to be taken away (half mast is when you let God be in charge of part of your life while you have control of other parts).

When we got home, there was this letter waiting for me from our pastor. He was asking me to join this small group of people tasked with raising money for a new church. I laughed to myself because I knew this was going to be one long boat ride.

Whether you find yourself in a boat with no wind in your sails or in a dark cave with no light, there are lessons to be learned. The wind will blow when the time is right to sail and you will find a way out of the cave when the conditions outside are in alignment with the Creator's master plan.

Have a great day and come sail away.