I think I might have an addiction… to adventure. When given the opportunity to travel, I cannot come up with a good enough reason to say no. There’s just something magical about seeing fresh sights, breathing different air, and experiencing new things. So when God called me to do my Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Hawaii in September of 2016, my heart soared.

One thing I wasn’t expecting, however, was to almost die.

Okay that sounds a little more dramatic than I intend. You see, I did feel like I almost died. More than once, in the ocean.

The very first time our team went to the beach, our leaders warned us that the waves at Second Ditch in Kekaha were huge and aggressive, and if we weren’t confident swimmers then maybe we should just enjoy some sand time instead of water time. They weren’t joking – the waves were bigger than any waves I’d ever seen in my life. (Granted, I did grow up locked in the middle of Louisiana, where our “beach” was actually just a nearby lake.)

At hearing the serious warning from our leaders, my heart surged: I wanted in that water.

Our leaders gave us a strategy: we needed to observe the wave patterns, to notice the time difference between when the waves broke and when they swelled up and toppled over again. As soon as a wave broke, those up for the challenge were to run as quickly as we could to get over the break line. Eyes wild and heart pumping, several of us students glanced at each other and took off, splashing determinedly and willing all of our muscles to push through the strong pull of the ocean.

Our first attempt, if I remember correctly, was pretty successful and smooth. I remember being on the other side, riding the waves as they built and watching from the deep as they crashed onto the shore. Sometimes, while trying to have conversations, ginormous waves would form behind us still, so we would have to pause, dive into the forming wave, let it wash over us, and emerge to continue chatting.

I never wanted to leave that spot – dangling on the brink of danger on a warm September afternoon, getting to know the 15-or-so people I would do life with for the next six months.

Perhaps it was because of that initial success with the waves that led to my later near-death experiences. Maybe I got too confident that I could easily enter and exit the tumultuous waves. Who knows?

All I know is that after that day, almost every time I got in the ocean, I lost control.

The worst moment from my memory was a few months later. During my DTS we didn’t go to the beach too frequently, so I tried to make the most of it every time we went. Sand time was almost never on my agenda.

This one specific time I remember successfully making it into the waves on the first try. I entered with a swell of pride in my swimming abilities and timing because a caution flag had been posted by the lifeguard that day. Conditions were dangerous: the winds and current kept aggressively sweeping us a long way down the beach. Eventually I ended up being separated from the rest of my group, bobbing up and down on the waves and squinting to recognize the tiny dots on the sand where our belongings were. I began feeling exhausted from fighting the current, and to be honest it’s not very fun having a wild and dangerous experience on your own. Finally I decided I had had enough, so I slowly started fighting my way to the shore.

At this beach, there was a super big section of shallow sand where the waves broke. I don’t know how to explain how dangerous it is, so I’ll just say that you definitely want to make sure you get out of the wave-crashing zone as fast as you can. Timing is paramount.

Perhaps because of my exhaustion and neglect since nobody else was around, I didn’t time it quite right as I tried to rush out of the water. I swam and finally got to the shallow section, then I started running as fast as I could.

Running in the ocean is hard, y’all. You try to will every part of your body to move, move, move, but due to the laws of nature you can only do so much. And apparently I wasn’t doing enough.

While in the shallows, I could see that I still had a few yards to go before I was clear of the threat of waves. Then I began to notice the whisper of a rush and felt the water pulling back against me – hard. Oh, no. I tried to push through, but it was no use. I looked back warily and saw a gigantic wave building right behind me. I don’t think I had time to process fear, so my only emotional response was dread. This is gonna hurt. My legs locked and I froze (as I always do in emergency situations). I didn’t have a choice or a chance: regardless of which direction I moved in, I was going to collide with that wave. And waves hurt, people.

Accepting my fate, I closed my eyes and grit my teeth to bare the oncoming pain.

Then it hit.

The wave was easily several feet over my head. I don’t know if it would have been better to just have been slammed by the belly of the wave, but that’s not exactly what happened.

The wave fell and crashed directly at my feet, and the momentum threw my whole body into the air; I could almost see the scene from a third person point of view. After being thrown up, my body spazzed awkwardly and my right arm twisted behind my back. I landed flatly onto the wave, which engulfed me instantly. The torrent then pulled me to the bottom and dragged and tossed me through the grainy sand. Since my arm was still bent behind my back, it absorbed most of the blow on the ground. I was pulled and held under for just about 10 seconds, but in that moment it felt much longer.

When it finally calmed enough for me to fight back, I emerged gasping for breath and shaking. Everything hurt and felt raw. My lungs seemed on fire. My hair was a tangled mess, and sand clung to everything.

I pulled myself to the shore and stood there, finally free, and glared back at the ocean that had just betrayed me. I wobbled back down the shore to the rest of my group clutching my aching arm, still disoriented.

I sat on my towel in the sand for the rest of the day.

This wasn’t the only time something like this had happened. I typically stayed in the ocean until I had an experience like this, but the experience usually wasn’t as violent or traumatic.

Why did I write out this overly-dramatic account of my experience in the ocean? Because this morning the Lord told me to read Psalm 93, which says, “Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!” As I meditated on those words, I was reminded, simply put, of God’s bigness.

If you stand beside the ocean (and listen to Lee Ann Womack), you’ll probably feel very small. It really helps put into perspective how miniscule we are in comparison to the universe. And that should astound us – God made the universe! He’s ginormous!

Not only is He unlimited in size, strength, power, and authority, but He’s also so detail-oriented. Psalm 139 says His thoughts towards us are more than the sand – which He also created! He knows how many grains of sand are scattered across the entire earth, and He has more thoughts towards us than that uncanny number.

This takes me back to the brief moment where I was suppressed at the bottom of the ocean. In that moment I was not overlooked. I was not forgotten. God saw me. He heard me. He felt my pain and fear. He made the ocean that was terrifying me. He hand-crafted each grain of sand that scraped against my skin. At His word, the waters could have gone completely still. Laws of nature don’t apply to God. He could have transformed the sand into pillows if He had wanted to!

I’m not writing this to ask why God let something bad happen to me. I made the silly decision to get in the ocean when an advisory flag was posted. I timed my exit poorly. Wisdom definitely was not applied on my part, and I can’t blame God for that. That’d make no sense.

Instead I look back on this experience (and the several like it) in awe. In that moment, all I could see and focus on was my current tribulation. (No pun intended.) But now I see that God is bigger! He’s so much bigger than any tribulation I face! Even if it’s the ocean! Haha. (Can you feel my excitement?)

So I said all that to tell you this: God is bigger than literally anything you are facing. If it feels like life (or the ocean) is beating you up, someone you love is neglecting you, nothing is turning out the way you want, loneliness is consuming you, or Walmart sold out of your favorite flavor of ice cream, I’m here to tell you that God is bigger.

He still sees you.
He still knows you.
He still loves you, through and through.

His arms are still open for you to rush into. Holy Spirit is still in the comforting business!

I love you. Be encouraged! God’s bigger than literally everything. And that comfort makes me want to jump back in the ocean again for another wild adventure.