“A Dream is Like a River”
By Loren Hardin
The Ashland Beacon
I sat at my desk praying about a situation I was desperately trying to change. I was determined to turn things around, to force things in the direction I wanted them to go. I schemed, I pressed every button, I attempted to manipulate people and circumstances, but what I wanted to happen, I couldn’t make happen. Exhausted and defeated, I cried out to God, "I give up. I don’t have it in me. I can’t do it. If I’m going to make it through this Father, You are going to have to do it for me! " Then instantly, I was reminded of a conversation I had several years earlier with Mike, a former hospice patient.
Mike was fifty-eight years old when he enrolled in our outpatient hospice services with pancreatic cancer. He and his wife, Janet, owned and operated a successful garden center and landscaping business. Mike was a canoeing enthusiast. He was building a cedar strip canoe that he hoped to finish if his cancer "cooperated". Well, it didn’t. But Mike didn’t give up. He attended a whittling class and crafted small birch bark canoes as gifts for his family and friends. Mike is an inspiring example of healthy compensation, which declares, "I might not be able to do that anymore, but I can still do this." He focused on what remained, not on what was lost. I was so inspired by Mike’s example that I wrote a column about him titled, "Don’t give up, don’t ever give up", which was published in the Portsmouth Daily Times on December 15, 2001.
But the conversation that came to mind that day as I sat at my desk exhausted and defeated, wasn’t about determination or healthy compensation, but about cooperation. Mike once shared about a canoe trip down the Scioto River with two of his young workers: "I was in a canoe by myself, and they were in a canoe together. They’d never been canoeing before, so they had no idea what they were doing. They didn’t know how to read the water. They would miss the current and would end up dragging in shallow water. And I would float by them as they paddled like crazy to catch up. They kept fighting against the current instead of cooperating with it and by the time we finished they were worn out."
I have a little whitewater canoeing experience, maybe just enough to be dangerous. A few years ago, I destroyed my brand new $600 Grumman aluminum canoe in Paint Creek at flood stage. It was twisted like a pretzel! The same day I almost buckled my $800 "Blue Hole" whitewater canoe on Rocky Fork Creek when it breached against a rock in only four feet of water. And I almost lost my future son-in-law. As we were gearing up for the trip, he donned an undersized child’s life jacket (against my advice) and said, "That’s good enough". About a half hour later he was clinging to a tree like a monkey with the water swirling under him. The tree was about twelve feet from shore. So, our group locked hands to form a human chain from the bank and repeatedly yelled, "Jump, we’ll catch you". He’s now a Coast Guard Marine Safety Technician. God bless America!
The force of water shouldn’t be underestimated. Did you know that the water pressure against a fifteen-foot canoe, running at ten miles an hour, breached against a rock, is over 8,000 pounds? Now you understand why it’s wise to understand and cooperate with the current.
There are also times to cooperate with the direction that life is moving us instead of kicking against it. But that doesn’t mean just "going with the flow". That could be disastrous. Experienced white-water canoeists take time to scout and know the stream; they read the water to choose a safe passage. They know that an inverted "V" in the water indicates that there is a rock in the center of the "V"; that "pillows" indicate a rock submerged beneath and should be avoided; that standing waves or "haystacks" are usually the route to take, because they indicate deeper water on the other side.
I’m reminded of the Apostle Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Paul was like a first century "Dog the Bounty Hunter". He was hell-bent on going to the synagogues in Damascus to arrest anyone who was a follower of Jesus, who were of “The Way". Then “suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven” and Paul heard the voice of Jesus ask, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me…It is hard for you to kick against the goads." Then Paul, shaking in his shoes replied, "Lord, what do You want me to do," (Acts 9:1-5)?
God’s power and force, like a river, shouldn’t be underestimated. When we find ourselves exhausted and defeated from kicking against the goads, like Paul, it would be wise to stop and ask, "Lord, what do You want me to do?”
"A dream is like a river, ever changing as it flows, and the dreamers just a vessel that must follow where it goes, trying to learn from what’s behind you and never knowing what’s in store, makes each day a constant battle, just to stay between the shores,” (“The River”, by Garth Brooks).
Loren Hardin was a social worker with SOMC-Hospice for twenty-nine years. He can be reached at 740-357-6091 or at lorenhardin53@gmail.com. You can order Loren's book, "Straight Paths: Insights for living from those who have finished the course", at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
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