“Push with your
legs! Give it all you’ve got!”
My heart pounded.
“Breathe deeply! Bend from your waist!”
My lungs kept pace
with my body,
Push back and exhale,
slide forward and inhale,
“This is our race to
win! Don’t let them take one inch from
you!”
With each stroke, I
kept my eyes locked with my coxswain,
And willed my body to
follow every word from her mouth.
On weekend mornings, I
row with twenty or so adults on Green Lake.
I am usually in a mixed 8, which means both men and women in an eight-seat
boat where we each have one oar. For the
past several months, the coach has assigned me to the stroke seat, which is the
farthest to the stern. I row face to
face with the coxswain, and the other rowers match the pace and stroke length I
set with the rower directly behind me. I’m
proud to be the stroke, because it’s not an easy position. A stroke has to focus hard on consistent,
long, aggressive strokes. From that
position in the boat, you can feel every shift that every other rower
makes. If someone puts their oar in the
water before you do, you can feel it.
You have to fight to keep your rhythm, whether or not everyone is in
sync or when the boat hits waves or encounters other glitches.
Yesterday morning, my
class formed 4 boats and raced each other during practice. The races were differing lengths, so we could
feel the difference between sprinting and longer pieces. As much as I’m proud to be stroke, it makes
me nervous when we race. I worry that
I’ll mess up or not be aggressive enough and let my boat down. My hands and arms usually shake as we sit,
grasping the oar handle out in front of our forward-leaning bodies, poised for
the start command from the coach’s megaphone.
As we raced, our two
coaches drove two separate speedboats alongside us, calling out adjustments and
encouragements. On top of that, our
coxswain, Corey, who wears a microphone attached to speakers under our feet,
was coaching us. Keeping a consistent
stroke rate and listening to three different voices, all while my body was
screaming, “This is crazy! I’m
pooped! What are you doing to me???” was
too much. Not only that, but in my
peripheral vision, I could see the two boats on either side of us – the boats
we were trying very hard to pass.
Something had to change.
I decided to block out
everything – my body’s pain, the other boats, the wind, even my coaches’ voices
– except Corey. I locked eyes with her
and did whatever her voice said, immediately.
If she called for a higher stroke rate, I didn’t question her command or
wonder if my body could go faster. I
went faster. If she told us ten more
strokes, I followed her countdown and was ready to keep going if she
asked. You see, Corey is the only person
in the boat who sees where we are going.
There could be fishing boats, swimmers, and buoys in our path, but I
will never know. I have a general idea
of when we’ll finish, based on knowing how long it takes to row a certain
amount of meters, but I can’t see the final buoy.
My boat was really
successful. We won nearly every racing
piece. I went home thinking about how
good it feels to blindly trust my coxswain.
In rowing, I am totally okay with not seeing where I am going. In life, I can’t stand not knowing the
future. It messes with me all the
time. I want God to just tell me what’s
going to happen for sure so I can prepare for it. When life is difficult and painful, I want to
know how much longer I’ll have to endure.
I want to stop trying when life is not going my way.
I wish I trusted God
like I trust my coxswain. I can row
without caring if we hit something.
Corey knows where she’s going and she doesn’t want to hit stuff or cause
an accident. In fact, she is totally
invested in our boat winning. I am 100%
sure of that. So, if she says something
that doesn’t make sense, based on what I perceive from my position in the boat,
I still follow her command immediately and without question. Just because I can’t see where I’m going
doesn’t mean I’m not going anywhere. I’m
actually going straight to the finish line, without fear and without stopping until
the race is over.
While I have a long
way to go in trusting God like this, the next step on which I’ve set my mind is
to simply be okay with not seeing where I’m going. I have no idea where I’m going on this earth,
and I am content to put my full effort into moving forward all the same. I’m happy to let God have His role in the
boat.
As you consider
trusting God more fully, remember with me that:
God loves us (Jeremiah
31:3).
God has plans full of
hope and prosperity (Jeremiah 29:11).
God takes care of all
of our needs in Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or
have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which
Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do
not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do:
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I
press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me
heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians
3:12-14
Watch a few minutes of
this video to feel the perspective of a coxswain looking at the stroke seat, coaching
her boat. This is a video I found
online, not my team.
