I haven’t sat here and written this while I’m happy. I haven’t begun, written and concluded this piece through a time of joy, nor over a week an easy nature. My day has not been graced by smiles nor a gift arriving at my doorstep. I haven’t been disrupted by a phone call granting me a pay rise or a free cruise around the world.
It simply hasn’t even been an ordinary time. My day, my week and my time that has existed while I’ve sat, thought and written had occurred in a hardship sailing wild seas.
Maybe not one which has battled the oceanic mountains, but a hardship which has chugged and chugged and chugged through broken hearts, tired minds and sore souls.
Not alone
And, as I write and you read, maybe you’re in the cabin next to mine. Or maybe you’re further down the passageway, or up on the deck. Maybe, just maybe, you’re in the bunk above me.
Or you might be on a whole other ship altogether. Another one, navigating an ocean of lost family, or one striding through seas of financial stress, or, maybe, one repeatedly bracing the waves of anxiety and depression.
Our ship isn’t the only one, and others aren’t only found in one harbour. We know that hardships of titanic sizes continuously thrust through global waters with billions of people in the cabins, millions walking the passageways and thousands braving the decks.
The One in control
But only One captains them all. One who will navigate around the carnage as well as glide right through it. One who rises over waves and smashes through them too. One who knows which cabin you are in at the same time as knowing exactly what is going on in mine. One who is steering. One who is in control.
I write from a cabin in a hardship which soars through an infiltrated ocean of heart break and other tiresome wreckage. And still it soars. And still I write. I still breathe, and, I still believe.
I am able to do this because the ship is being steered. My ship is under control. For I am no sailor nor am I the captain - I barely know the bow from the stern and the port to the stubborn. I am just in a cabin of a ship that so many are on and God is my captain.
The truth
I write this not to prove a point or claim to have endeavoured through the storm. For right now, what I see from my porthole remains blanketed by dark clouds. I simply write this in truth and for truth.
The truth that no matter how you feel and no matter what you’re going through, you are allowed to sit tight in your cabin or freely explore the deck. The truth that you’re as safe below as you are at the tip of the highest mast.
And the truth that through the storms and the sun your ship will continue to soar. Because He is in control, and He is the captain of your ship.
Harrison is a 24-year old, raised in a non-Christian family and came to faith at 18. Having worked as a Marketing & Communications Assistant for two years after getting his Bachelor of Communications in 2019, He has swapped his home of New Zealand for Europe after a few months working at a summer Christian camp in Canada. He has a passionate personality which is illustrated in many facets of his life, from writing, to sports, food, friends, family and God. Harrison enjoys exploring and grasping different parts of life and discussing them with others. Chat with Harrison further at: harrisonbellve@gmail.com