Rope Floats

If thoughts of Sandra Bullock are dancing through your head you are floating down the wrong river.

The internet has been a buzz over the past few days about the Oscar take home of cutie pie Sandra winning over the likes of Meryl Streep. I personally like her and think that “All About Steve” should be forgiven and forgotten. In any case, I have to admit, my post title is my own pithy spin off Sandra’s “Hope Floats”, a last decade movie graced by Miss Congeniality herself.

The words were actually inspired by my Dad.

When I was a little girl growing up in a home with 3 other little girls, one of the family memories we made together was learning to water ski. I grew up in Savannah, Georgia, home of dripping moss, hot pink azaleas and fluffy white Dogwood tress. Not to mention, Paula Dean and “The Garden of Good and Evil” for goodness sakes.

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Savannah has lots of water all around and we took advantage of it. We had a boat from as far back as I can remember. We used to load it up with camping gear and hook it to the back of our Chevy Impala and head off for local state parks and annual camping vacations that were filled with hiking, swimming and water skiing from dawn ‘til dusk.

One of the challenges of having a boat filled with 3 sisters was that everyone wanted to “go first” or “go next”. The determining factor for when one sister lost her turn around the lake and the next one got to jump unto the water for her skim across the top of the lake was FALLING! If you fell you either got back up so fast no one had time to steal the rope from you or you were toast and another little sister was in the lake and grabbing the skis.

I remember those moments of panic and possession when I would fall and be struggling to quickly grab the ski rope back before that horror happened.

The wise and promising words of my Dad when that happened have stuck with me all these years.

As I would struggle and strive to keep my turn, skis the size of small cars flailing around in the lake, a life jacket floating up my face threatening to cover my eyes and trying to grab that rope with all of my 65 pound power (that number has changed drastically!! As well as my attempts at “another turn! —But I digress).

My Dad would yell out from the boat, “Just RELAX Pat, lie back on your jacket and I will bring the rope to you” and he did.

He would drive the boat around me in a big circle as close as he could get without running over me and that ski rope would float right into my hands.

It reminds me of what God does for HIS KIDS today. We don’t have to strive and struggle to get what we want from God. We just have to LISTEN, OBEY and RELAX.

God will deliver the rope—the dream, the ministry, the need, the direction, the HOPE (That Floats also!) that we need—right into our hands.

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This is my grandson who has been blessed to have inherited my water skiing skills!!

Let’s Remember Matt 11:28-30 Today!
God’s Burden is Light!

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6 Comments

  1. Pat,
    I grew up water skiing at summer camp in Texas. Every time I feel, it was my automatic reaction to want to swim to the rope because I like to have control of the situation. It is way to hard to swim with the lifevest on, yet I tried it anyway to no end. It is hard to just float and wait on God! But, that is why we have the lifevest. Thanks for the great illustration. It made me say, hmmmm, what areas of my life am I swimming toward the rope and not getting anywhere!

    love,
    sarah

  2. Great post mom, though anything that makes me picture Papa in my mind, which this certainly did, makes me cry in two seconds flat, no…it doesn’t take that long. I sure miss him.

    But your point is so good. It’s funny, I wrote something very similar today myself at my “secret” website, which I’m thinking of letting out of the bag soon. Great minds think alike I guess.

    https://www.iwilllead.net

    By the way! Your big exciting conference this week now has a Twitter account for everyone to follow and keep up with events around the conference.

    https://twitter.com/freedomwknd

  3. Sarah–You and me both!!!

    Tim–You and me both!! LOL!

    I read your post. Precious!
    And thank you for the new Twitter account…one more chat opportunity and you know I love that!

  4. Oh! What a wonderful memory and so true that rope was never out of reach. And waiting for a turn was always so worth the wait. We sure do have some great memory. And so many good one’s so many people are not as lucky as we are. Praise God for all are many blessing they are so wonderful and plenty full. I love you Thank for all the good memorys. Love ya sis

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