Riding the wave

Last week I reacquainted myself with the surf down south for the first time this season. It was a perfect day with a good sized solid swell and offshore breeze. I suited up and went down onto the beach. The shoreline was covered with large rock that the wave would eventually come crashing into. There was a narrow sandy channel where if you timed the waves right you could paddle out to the break safely.

Once I was out there sitting on my board among the other surfers the waves suddenly looked a lot bigger than they did from the car park. I could see a set brewing on the horizon and as it approached I began surveying the situation in my mind. There was no escape I was sitting between the rocks and the waves and when it’s your first surf in a while a healthy dose of anxiety creeps up inside you. The anxiety begins to step up a couple of notches when you see the expressions on the other surfers faces change and suddenly they slip from sitting to lying on their board and paddling like crazy for the waves at the back.

As the waves got closer I could see them lining up one after the other with the crest of the wave feathering in the wind. The waves loomed closer and closer and I found I was faced with two choices. Follow part of the crowd that was scrambling like crazy to get behind the waves before they broke or brave it like few others and face the inevitable. I managed to clear the first but knew that the ones behind were bigger and would break sooner. I caught the third wave of the set fro the ride of my life.

As I cut across the face of the wave the wall began to build and build as it edged closer to the shore. I knew I wasn’t going to make the section so two more choices faced me, turn out in front and risk riding the whitewash being smashed into the rocks, or duck in under the wave closing in on me. Either way I was going to get pounded.

I chose the latter…boom! After a couple of seconds I popped up on the other side of the wave in calm waters and braced to duck the next couple of waves of the set. I saw that no-one had escaped the brutal pounding of the surf during that set. While some like me had braved it and taken the plunge on one wave, others who tried to avoid it ended up taking a beating from every wave of the set and they were left weak, coughing and spluttering, heading for that narrow opening to shore.

Sometimes things loom up in our lives and line up like waves on the horizon. Often every instinct within us tells us we must avoid getting pounded at all costs, yet they’re there on the horizon and we’re sitting in the water and we know eventually we’re going to have to face whatever it is we are trying to avoid. We always have choices, do we go with the crowd or do we listen to the voice within that says with reason, ‘you must deal with this eventually’?
Eventually the wave catches up and our character is tested as to how we will ride this wave or are we still scrambling to avoid it. You will come face to face with it eventually, it’s either take you unwillingly or you’ll be prepared for the ride. It’s amazing the confidence we can get out of facing that which causes anxiety within us and popping out the other end still in tact. The looming wave on the horizon will inevitably hit the shore. When you’re sitting between it and the shore the question is, what are you going to do with it?

Shalom
Mark