Whitney Williams: Surfing lessons and the Christian life

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 30th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

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EICHER: Right, maybe you’re a new listener and you haven’t even thought about how this program is supported, or any of our journalistic products, for that matter.

But they are listener and viewer and reader supported. So if you benefit from biblically objective journalism and you’ve never given before, make this the week you do it. Because as Mary just said, whatever gift you make this week only is automatically doubled. Matched dollar for dollar. Please visit wng.org/newdonor.

REICHARD: Generous opportunity there, and again, a little sense of urgency, you can only take advantage of the offer this week. All right. Up next: WORLD commentator Whitney Williams.

WHITNEY WILLIAMS, COMMENTATOR: Nine years ago, my husband and I decided to take surfing lessons in the Puerto Rican Atlantic—well, actually, I decided, but he didn’t say no.

It was all fun and games until my husband got hurt. We had just bailed off of our boards after catching a wave in and were floating together near shore, resting and chatting before swimming back out. Suddenly a massive wave pulled us under, along with our boards. In what seemed like less than a second, my board shot out of the water like a rocket and slammed into my husband’s face, breaking his nose, and shattering his orbital bone and cheek area.

I remember the surf instructor yelling, “You’re knocked out, bro! You’re knocked out!” as my husband tried to paddle in, blood gushing. Having been dropped off at the lesson by my parents, we didn’t have our own transportation, so we piled into the surf instructor’s rusty hatchback and headed to the nearest clinic.

The first clinic workers just shook their heads. At the second clinic, a lady in a sparkly pink sweatshirt sewed my husband’s face back together, needling in 12 stitches just below his left eye. She then sent him by ambulance across the island to San Juan where we spent the night together on a gurney in a busy ER hallway. When the doctors finally got around to us, they decided my husband’s facial fracture didn’t require surgery, which was good news, but what happened next was like something out of a horror movie. A medical professional in a white lab coat laid him down on a table, which caused him to choke on his own blood, then she proceeded to jab some scissors-like contraption so far up his nose that I was certain she was going for his brain—you’re stabbing me! he screamed, coming up off the table—and then she muscle jerked his nose back to its midline, full force.

“It’s not your fault,” I remember him telling me, eye purple and swelled shut, bloody tissues jammed up his nose. “It’s not your fault.” I appreciated the grace.

Nine years later, the story has shifted: “Remember that time you broke my face?” he asks me, blaming me for his one “crazy eye” that opens more than the other when he smiles.

First off: He had that crazy-looking eye when I met him. Secondly: I didn’t drag him into the water with me that day against his will. No, we both knew the dangers of the ocean, the forcefulness of its waves, and yet, we chose to play around in it anyway.

The ocean’s not sinful, of course, and my husband’s only kidding when he blames me for his smashed face. But when I consider this experience, I can’t help but think of the ocean of sinful choices life presents. Most of us recognize the dangers, some of us choose to play anyway. So what happens, then, when the waves of consequence overtake us and bust us in the face? Are we knocked out, bro? No, the Bible says, but in order to receive forgiveness and healing, we must admit we’re hurt and that we’ve only got ourselves to blame. We’ve got to own up to what’s ours before Christ will say “that’s mine.”

And by the way, we’re done surfing.

I’m Whitney Williams.

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