“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”
―William Faulkner
On my first visit to the ocean I waded hesitantly into the surf, feeling the ground seem to disappear beneath me as the water receded, only to be knocked down by the next wave. I’m not a strong swimmer, and going beyond where I could touch bottom scared me, so I stayed there where the surf was breaking, knocked to and fro by the turbulence. It was exhausting, doing battle with those waves. I waded back onto the beach only to realize sand was packed in every nook and cranny, head to toe. I returned to the surf to rinse off, but came away with more sand.
It wasn’t until last year when a friend convinced me to try snorkeling that I experienced my first real ocean swim. It was peaceful, serene, quiet… no sand in the metaphoric gears. I’d been missing out for years because I wouldn’t go beyond my perceived comfort zone, even though my comfort zone was full of sand and crashing waves.
How often is life just like that? We stay stuck in the familiar, even when it’s making us miserable. We’re always wishing for something better or different or new and wondering why everyone else seems to be having a much better time than we are. We never realize that if we’ll go a little farther, and surrender to the uncertainty of the deep water, we’ll find what we’re looking for.
It takes courage to push through the turbulent seasons of life and strike out toward something new — courage to hope for the better. I needed courage to go out into the deeper water, beyond the turbulence, to let go of the familiar. I didn’t have that courage in myself, it took encouragement from a friend.
Do you see the word courage in “encouragement”? To have courage means to “have heart.” To encourage means to “put heart in” something or someone.
We can encourage ourselves, and should, but when we encourage others, I think we get a double dose of courage. It’s the pat on the back, the kind word, the unexpected gift, the word of advice, that makes the difference from day to day. And it makes the world a better place.
As someone has said, “Be an encourager, the world has enough critics.”