This summer my dad took me on a little sail at Bear Lake.

He is a sailor, you know. This man is a true renaissance guy if I ever knew one.

The wind was flat.

So at first there was not much “sailing” going on. Just good talking.

We picked up my sister Saydi and her daughters as well as their new exchange student from Switzerland, still hopeful the wind would pick up a little.

And then we looked over on that seemingly calm horizon on the North Shore and saw what worried us.

Can you see it below? It may take a trained eye to see, someone who has been stuck in a Bear Lake storm before. If you look close, see that sand blowing up in the air?

That was when we got nervous.

Microbursts at Bear Lake are no joke.

I think it’s funny that everyone is smiling in that video, because our pants were being scared right off I tell you! That boat, although you cannot tell in the video, was tilting right on it’s side.

I was glad my Dad had taught me to let those ropes go: the ones that hold the sail in place to catch the wind.

It was too strong. Too powerful. It would have taken us right over.

(Or maybe it would have been fine, my Dad was never nervous, maybe the rest of us were just being wimpy in all that wind!)

We made it into the marina, but had to do a little crash landing rather than get to our slip.

Still smiling:

And it makes me wonder: is that just what parents do?

I mean, I’ve done it my fair share of times with my kids: put on a happy, calm face even though my insides are screaming.

Keep the tension and stress level down, “it will be ok.”

It made me grateful my for my dad’s calm reassurance through all of my life.

It made me grateful for God’s calm reassurance in the tough times.

“You’ve got this.”

Or

I’ve got this.”

I have felt Him carrying me sometimes.

If I remember to ask.

There are so many people around me going through some pretty serious storms right now.

That wind is filling up their sails to the point they are on the verge of toppling.

I hope they can let those ropes go and lean on their “support crews.”

And I hope somehow through those support crews they will feel the presence of God at the helm, calming, loving, at times carrying.

Making some sort of sense of all that wind in the sails.

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