The Rocks

Blessed with Grandparents who wisely invested in a Summer Home, growing up (and even still) I had the privilege of spending my summer vacations basking in all the glory of the sun. With a house that overlooks the Long Island Sound, a quaint seaside home, literally steps away from the sand and seashells – you can imagine how this girl soaked up the rays and worked on her tan as a teenager. You can also imagine all of the trouble one gets into growing up with the honor of a sun kissed retreat.

There were boys to bother. Tanning lotion to test. Barbeques to feast at. Salt water to perfect my backstroke in. And of course, there were The Rocks.

Now, The Rocks, named that because well, they were and still are tremendous boulders protruding out of the water, were considered The Feat of my summer house days. Off the shore in deep, dark water, The Rocks were no joke.

My brother, cousins and I would stare at them with the determination of amateur Christopher Columbus-like, exploration -hungry intentions. One morning we awoke and declared to one another that this was indeed the day The Rocks were going down.

And so we grabbed our inflatable raft, snorkels, and towels and journeyed our way down the beach toward The Rocks. The moment we had them in our sight, we jumped into the raft and began our passage.

We were doing so well until the halfway point.

Two of the four of us, my cousins, began to panic that we were too far from shore in the event of a raft sinking or shark attack.

My brother saw trouble ahead as he took notice of a change in the current.

I was still reeling over the fact that we had forgotten the oars. Using your hands to paddle out to sea is not the wisest of things to do, especially when there was talk of shark attacks.

Our little vessel was beginning to catch on to the current change and landed us in this whirlpool like rock enclosure. The water was churning in a circular motion, caught in between two smaller rocks and well, so were we.

Looking at each other, the four of us quickly surmised that we were, “GOING TO DIE!!!”

Screaming ensued. One of us jumped. Three of us tried to pull her back in.

The salt water was spinning so rapidly, you could taste death.

We were that close.

Of course, that is until our Dads took note of us on shore and started yelling out directions.

To save myself from further embarrassment, I will just say we ended up swimming back to shore.

Apparently, we were not as far off as we thought.

And clearly, though we lacked a flair for oceanography, we did indeed possess one for the dramatics.

But what powerful freedom we tasted in our Fathers’ rescue.

Much like the rescue we have tasted in Christ.

Colossians 1:13

"God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons.

He's set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much,

the Son who got us out of the pit we were in,

got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating."