Laura Chapman Writes

Photo Credit:  Brent Bielmann

They say our children are the best teachers.  But sometimes it’s their friends who also teach us meaningful lessons. My daughter’s friend, Corinne–a wonderful woman of faith and amazing mom–shared something recently that stopped me in my tracks.

Corinne’s husband; professional surfer, Aaron Gold, is one of the best and recently was recognized for successfully paddling the largest wave. He knows what he’s doing. Aaron is probably safer and more skillful riding gargantuan waves than most of us are on the freeway.  But in an instant, his family’s greatest fears were realized. He rode a wave and didn’t come up. Unconscious and unresponsive he was somehow pulled from the water. Miraculously, after far too many long minutes–he was revived with no lasting effects. You can read Aaron’s own words about his experience and how it changed him HERE.

I know I wasn’t alone as I stood on the sidelines and watched this take place through the windows of the Internet and held my breath. And prayed.  When the news came mercifully fast that he was going to be ok, I was struck by the magnitude of what had just happened.

At that moment I was transported back to another time.  I was the young mother with little ones as I faced the loss of a husband and father of my children. I’ll never forget how cold it was in the waiting room as a routine surgery suddenly turned into a nightmare. I’ll never forget the silence on the phone as my own mother tried to dispel my fears of having to raise my children alone but couldn’t think of anything reassuring to say. And I’ll never forget the way the entire landscape of my life changed when the surgeons told me what they had found wasn’t what they initially thought and thankfully my husband would recover.

It was my first near miss.

I watched as Corinne shared the details of her own ordeal with grace and gratitude. I’ll always believe her near miss actually had less to do with her than with the inconceivable nature of God. A nature that is often all about waiting until the last possible moment before swoops in to save one of his children. And while we can’t possibly know for certain why he works this way, one reason might be so we can know, just for a tiny second, the true goodness of His perfect timing and depth of His love.

And when this happens nothing is ever the same.

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