The Speed of Life

Sometimes the pace of life seems to remind me of a river. Sometimes it is smooth and easygoing, just drifting along. Other times it is angry and turbulent, like rapids, and still other times are just swift. Right now I'm in the rapids. It can't be helped. In order to get downriver, I have to pass through these rapids.

Funny thing about "shooting the rapids", you never get to choose exactly how you get through, but like the tour guides for the whitewater rafting companies, you learn how to try and set yourself up so that the rapids have the least negative effect while giving you the best ride.

The summer before my family moved to Hawaii, I took my wife and kids to a family reunion on my dad's side of the family. While we were up in Idaho, we went on a river trip with my dad's cousin who is a Whitewater Rafting guide. The thing we were looking forward to wasn't the calm, smooth part of the river, but rather the adventure of challenging nature in the rapids of the Snake River.

And it was, it was every bit as exciting as we had hoped. The water crashing over the bow of the raft and soaking us; the anticipation and sense of urgency as we set up our approach to go through the rapids at an angle that would assure us of the best ride through to the other side!

There are a lot of up and downs in the rapids, but once we got into the calm, I found myself looking back at the rapids. I found myself defining my experience in the river by the rapids. Face it, one river bend looks exactly like another, but each stage of rapids is new and exciting.

Now, I find myself in another of life's rapids as I get ready for deployment, I must make sure that a ton of personal matters are taken care of, the nearest of which is clearing housing, which also includes moving out, getting storage space, and integrating myself into a friend's life who has offered to take me in during my time of transition.

I don't see the rapids ending anytime real soon, and sometimes the distance between the rapids isn't or doesn't seem very long at all, but I am confident that one way or another, there is always an other side to them! At the times of stark terror and fear in the midst of a wild ride, thats the one thing that brings peace, regardless of the ups and downs.