I Want to Walk on the Water

Grief. Feels like a shipwreck.  One moment life is familiar. The next, you're floating in waters you never expected to navigate, surrounded by pieces of the life you once knew, reaching for whatever you can find just to stay afloat. Then the waves come. One after another. Relentless. Threatening to pull you under before you've caught your breath from the last one. If you've ever walked through deep grief, I don't have to explain those pictures. You know them. You've lived them. I know them, too. Not your story perhaps, b ut I know what it feels like to have life change in an instant. To wonder how you'll ever move forward. To question whether you'll ever feel whole again.  Somewhere along the journey—maybe not immediately, but eventually—a different question begins to surface. "Why?" Why did this happen? Why now? Why them? Why me? If we're honest, we're often searching for the purpose of our pain, but over the years  I've come to know ...

One of the most breathtaking sights in the ocean is watching a humpback whale feed. Scientists call it lunge feeding . The whale surges upward, opening its mouth nearly ninety degrees as the expandable pleats beneath its jaw stretch like an accordion. In one incredible gulp, it takes in an enormous amount of water and food. Then something remarkable happens.  The whale filters everything it has taken in.  It keeps only what will sustain it.  The rest is released back into the sea.  As I watched this magnificent creature, I couldn't help but think... "There's a lesson here." The funny thing is, this journey didn't actually begin with a whale.  It began in  Proverbs.  For thirty chapters, Proverbs repeatedly warns us about our mouths.  Guard your tongue. Don't gossip. Don't lie. Don't speak recklessly. Don't answer before listening. Then, almost unexpectedly, the final chapter changes direction.  Three times we're told to open our mouths. "...