The Wave

6:54 PM
May 23, 1983

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This short story was written after I had made my second trip from Alaska. Which happened in 1980 but the above date indicates a time when I was in Owego New York for a few years. I have no recollection of having access to any computer during that time and truly the only time I ever had computer access was after 1986, so not sure how I did any editing or writing with a computer during that time so it must have been with pen and paper.   

At the time of its creation my father was very ill with lung cancer and I had been traveling all over New England searching for a place to write up my material. After spending some very difficult times without food and bathing in very cold streams in the Maine woods, I started to hitch-hike south to a place where I could rest. Along the way a fellow who happened to be a ranger for a park near the ocean gave me a ride. I asked him if he knew of any interesting and beautiful areas I could camp in, he suggested Reid Beach State Park. So he drove me right out to the park.

Being very weak from lack of food I sought out a place on a rocky outcropping in the sun by the ocean to try and keep my body warm. It was May first 1981 and this was the day that I had made a commitment to start a book. I believe that what I wrote in my journal that morning was the best thing I placed on paper because the Lord had given it to me. Now that I reflect back on it over the years that have gone by, I realize that this story sums up everything that I would ever want to convey in a book. This story contains a reflection of the beginning and end of all things in my life, as well as the nature of the coexistence of divine and human consciousness. It conveys all of what I wanted my story of the journey to speak about in a way that may help others understand what is most important about the journey of life we all must take.

I have left the story as I first received it except for one exception; I removed one word from the last line that blocked the revelation that is reflected there in. The Lord said, “I am in them and you are in me.

 

 



 
 
The Wave


I am the wave in the ocean. As I move along in my life, I see myself growing up. I also see other waves coming and going and wonder where they are bound and why. As I see the shores of my life's end drawing closer with each passing moment, I feel compelled to search for the answers to who I am, where I come from and where I am going. I search everywhere; I ask the wave in front of me and the one behind me but they are too busy heading for the shores of life's end to answer my questions. They only tell me that I had better prepare myself for the time that I get old and become white on top. These answers provide me no comfort and the time I have expended asking them have brought me that much closer to the shores of life's end.

Seeing this, I am struck with a sense of terror and desperation. In that moment I turn and look within myself, finding in that peace, I am made of the very waters that surround me, and what is me is that aspect of the waters that crests above and dips below the rest of the ocean.

Once I thought I was the wave in the ocean, but now I know, I AM, the ocean in the wave and the ocean never dies.

 

 

In 1980 I wrote my first bit of prose (above) about a wave in the ocean as our identity in God through Jesus Christ, then seven years later while working as a youth missionary in Alaska, a young Korean student wrote this story about a wave in the ocean which I just found today thirty eight years later. My Lord Jesus You are so awesome in Your unfathomable love and mysterious timing.

 

 

 

 

 


Updated: November 17, 2023

 

© Copyright February 10, 2004 by Michael Rice

 

E-mail: all7miles@gmail.com

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