Feet First

Have you ever been to the beach? From the time that I was 7, our family lived ten minutes away from one of the most well-kept, beautiful secrets of the East Coast: Wrightsville Beach.  I grew up spending summers at Wrightsville Beach down by the Oceanic restaurant, I learned to love running at the Wrightsville Beach loop, and Scott asked me to be his wife over a March sunset in the sand dunes by the jetty at Wrightsville Beach.  All this to say that I love that beach.

There's a few things you learn when you live at the beach.  You learn how to get out of a rip current. Don't fight it, be calm and swim parallel to the shore.  You learn the difference between a shark fin and a manatee fin.  One swims parallel to the shore, the other swims perpendicular.  And you learn how to deal with a jellyfish sting when the jellyfish swim rampant in the ocean in the warm August waters.  Just pee on yourself.  No, really.  You have to pee on it.

One of the things that I've learned from the beach is that it's ok to go feet first in the water.  In fact, it's really the only way to get into the water at the beach unless you're jumping off of a boat, pier, of cliff.  In pools, you can go head first by diving in, or you can choose feet first.  You can jump or cannonball, you can pencil dive.

I used to have an extreme fear of the ocean.  One summer I attempted to learn how to surf with a friend.  I was paddling out and was trying to get out past where the waves break so that I could wait for a good wave to come.  As I paddled over a huge wave, I saw no less than eight jellyfish riding the wave and going past me.  I immediately got out of the water and decided that I was done for the day.  Though I had little experience with being stung by a jellyfish, I didn't want to start then.  A friend of mine had recently been stung by a Portuguese man o'war (weird way to spell this, I never knew this word was spelled that way) with tentacles 150 feet long.  The body of the man o'war can actually sit that far out from the shore, yet its tentacles can reach that far in to sting you.

For a few summers after that, I was very afraid of the ocean.  I'd put my beach chair down on the shore so that my feet could feel the cool ocean water, but I wouldn't submerge my body in the ocean. And then one day, I was sick of sitting on the shore while everyone else surfed and swam and played Marco Polo in the water.  I did the calculations and the worrying in my head about the dangers of the ocean and all of the fears I had about going back in.  And without warning, without telling anyone, without trying to plan it all out in the perfect way, I just ran in, feet first.  I ran all the way until I was out where my friends were, and then I put my head under the water, fully submerged.

Running in feet first is a funny thing.  I'm not talking about slowly walking in, getting your toes wet and then your ankles, knees, etc.  I'm talking about running like a wild person into the water until you're fully soaked in salt water.  On those hot days when the water is so cold it stings, when it takes a minute for your brain to register just how cold the water actually feels.  That's the kind of feet first I'm talking about.  When your body experiences something before your brain even has the time to register what's going on, what it's sensing.

Maybe you can relate to this in some small way.  I recently find myself in a place where I've abandoned all of the "what ifs" and the calculating and the planning, and I've run in, feet first, to all that is before me.  I was unsure about telling a lot of people about this a few weeks ago, but I've recently realized that I've always lived very transparently for those around me, with little to hide in the way of secrets or how I'm feeling or what I'm thinking about.  I wear my heart on my sleeve and leave very little to the imagination.  So why would it be any different with the current situation I'm in?

Within the past month, I've decided to apply to graduate schools in Indiana to pursue a degree in an adult gerontology nurse practitioner program.  My husband will read this and think, "I thought you weren't telling anyone?"  But in the spirit of being true to who I am, I'm oversharing once again.  I always thought of graduate school as a "maybe" sort of thing in my future.  I wanted to do it, but then I got married and moved away from the nursing school I would have loved to attend, and I kept getting deeper and deeper into the bedside nursing world.  I told myself, "maybe someday.  Not now."

And then Scott and I started talking one day and we both decided, "Hey.  Why not now?"  Without much thinking, I made the decision and decided that the worst that could happen would be not getting accepted.  And even so, I would continue to have a job in a profession I love, where I work with great nursing staff.  Nothing would necessarily have to change if the answer is a resounding no.  And if it's a yes? Then I would welcome the new opportunity with open arms and embrace higher education within my profession.

So what's there to lose?  I'm running with abandon, feet first, to see where God takes me.  This was not part of my carefully laid out plans for 2015, but some of the very best things in my life have happened in the midst of forsaken plans and broken rules.  I've grown most in those situations where I've allowed myself to do something outside of the ordinary, the expected.  I don't doubt that there's a journey ahead this year, and maybe it's in a classroom or maybe it's continuing with life as I know it.  But nevertheless, I knew I had to at least make the effort.  I knew I had to get my whole body in the water before my brain had time to do the calculations and figure out what was really going on.

I hope you've had chances to experience things feet first in your life.  Or I hope that you'll have the opportunity sometime to do it.  It's kind of scary and weird and makes your stomach lurch a little, but it's also beautiful and exhilarating in its own sort of way.  It's maybe reckless, but it is also life-giving; it's standing out on a ledge and trusting that God will see you through the decision, and it's knowing that no matter what happens, He is faithful and good, and His plan is perfect regardless of what you have done to try to plan and calculate.  He knows the end result before you even have the idea to put your feet in the water.

XO,
C