Swimming Against the Tide

We were at the beach the other day and the waves were pretty decent, maybe 3 to 5 feet, and there was a sand bar not too far out that you could swim out too and stand up on.  Very cool.  But swimming out to the sand bar was tricky because the waves were strong enough and the distance was great enough that I kept getting pushed back even when I felt like I was moving forward.  Life feels like that a lot with a bp child.  You keep trying to move forward, you see the sandbar offering relief ahead (school starts in the fall, this other camp is coming, maybe a solid friendship is ahead, perhaps a new medication will solve the mood swings) but you keep getting smacked in the face by waves that want to pull you under.  For me the waves are as much my own poor reactions to life events with Caroline than the actual problems.  The negative things that happen because of her disorder are often not as bad as my own fearful reactions to them.  And there is the ripple effect they have on her siblings.  She is like the pebble dropped into the water, which may stir up the silt already there on the bottom, but the outward rings proceeding from that stirring keep going.  I see God as being like a surfboard, pardon the analogy, to ride the waves that inevitably keep coming.  Without the surfboard, you keep getting pulled under, but with the surfboard, the waves are not slowed, but you can actually use the board to ride the waves get where you need to go.  "All things work together for the good of those who love Him..." Romans 8:28.   Not a perfect analogy, but a good one.