vacation was good

vacation was good...

Man. Vacation was good. It's great to just sit and relax with nothing to do, no schedule to keep and no phone calls or emails to make/write.
I feel very refreshed and relaxed and ready to tackle whatever comes my way.

I totally have a fresh appreciation for the event of Jesus calming the storm found in Mark 4. On Monday, we were hanging out at a beach on Senaca Lake called "Boater's Cove." While we were back in there, it's about 3/4 of mile from the camper we were staying in, the National Weather Service posted thunderstorm warnings for the county to our Northwest.
We didn't think much of it and kept on swimming. About 30 minutes later, they issued storm warnings for the county we were in. That was enough. We grabbed up our stuff and threw it on the boats, we had both a ski boat and a pontoon (sp?). Myself, my wife Jackie and my mom were on the pontoon. My dad, sister Addy and her husband were on the ski boat.
As we came out of the cove with the pontoon, you could see the wind blowing water through the air and huge waves rolling ahead of the wind. It was a really scary sight. There are a few times in my life that I have been scared... I was about to have another.
We began to take on some of the wind and the waves. The waves were crashing into the front of the boat and water was pouring onto the deck of the boat. It's a good thing that it was a pontoon and was flat, the water mostly ran off as fast as it ran on. The wind was pushing waves that were probably 6 to 8 feet tall.
Up ahead of us on the lake, we were attempting to get back to the camper, there was another pontoon attempting to do the same. As I caught a glimpse of it, I got really scared. There was a pontoon boat, completely out of the water, up in the air with only it's motor in the water. This boat was at least 10 or 12 feet in the air. That's when I started to get scared.
I told my mom, who was driving, that she should go diagonal over the waves, as she had been attacking them head on and to head for a bay. There wasn't much of a way we were getting back to the camper. After much wind, water and waves, we finally made it into a bay where we endured remaining rain, wind and waves. We waited it out and then headed back to camp. But for a few minutes, I wasn't sure if we were going to make it or not.
On the ski boat, my dad said the waves would crash over the front of the boat and when going over them, the wind would push them up and sideways. At one point, a huge wave crashed over the front of the boat and smashed out a section of the windshield. They, too, made it across the lake and into the beach area where they rode out the storm.
These words became very real to me: "A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, don't you care if we drown?'"
I certainly felt like I was going to drown. It was so bad on the other boat, that my dad made my brother-in-law and sister put on lifejackets.

Scary experience. Totally memorable. Definately humbling. I feel like we were blessed with life that day.

Tyndale