Be Your Own Hero

This picture was taken exactly as we were taking our paddle boards out, when we had no idea what we were about to face…

My husband and I took a vacation with some of our friends to the island of Maui, just to get away. We enjoyed every single moment of it, and I mean every moment! We knew we all wanted to relax at the beach as much as possible so that’s exactly what we did. A few of us went down to the beach across from our hotel room and brought some books to read. It was BEAUTIFUL! The wind was barely blowing and the sun was out. My friend Chels got up and asked if I wanted to go paddle boarding with her, and of course I said YES!

We each grabbed a board and started to paddle out into the ocean. The water was so blue and the views were breathtaking. The wind was blowing a little bit in the direction away from shore, the direction we were paddling but not bad. We stopped and sat on our boards, taking in the ocean air and enjoying the moment we were having. If you didn’t know already, it’s whale season in Hawaii so we had just caught the end of it. All of a sudden my friend sees a whale in the distance and shouts, “Let’s go to the whales!!!” and she started paddling further out so I got excited and yelled, “yes!” and we were off…paddling even further out into the deep abyss. After paddling a little ways further, we stopped again to sit and enjoy the moment we were having together in Maui, whale watching on our paddle boards. I turned my head to check behind me to see how far we were from shore and we were so far that everything looked really small. I got nervous and said, “Chels, I think we should turn around and head back. We are so far out”. The wind suddenly picked up and some clouds in the sky started to cover the sun just enough to make it darker. I started to panic when I tried to turn my paddle board around and struggled to do so because of how strong the winds were and how hard they were blowing against us. I finally managed to turn my board around but flipped off into the water because I wasn’t well balanced on my board and the wind took me. I flipped my board back over, gasping for air and yelling out, “Chelsea!!!”. I was panicked and she stayed so calm. I finally got back onto my board after flipping a couple times, working on staying well balanced with my knees spread wide so that my board wouldn’t flip. We were about 2 miles off shore and knew we had to kick our butts into gear. I lost my paddle after flipping off my board but my friend Chels went and got it for me because she saw it floating away. I was panicking so bad that I was yelling at her to stay close to me and leave the paddle behind. She said, “No, I am going to get your paddle because this is what you’re going to need to get back”. I tried to surf paddle in a panic over to her but wasn’t able to because the board was too wide and the waves just took you under if you scooted too close to the front of the board. She got back to me and handed me my paddle and told me, “you need this, don’t lose it”. We stayed next to each other for a moment and decided to strap each others paddle board ankle strap to the other, but soon realized that didn’t work because of how hard the wind was blowing and we didn’t have enough space between each other to paddle. She told me she would get behind me so that I knew she was there with me. She went into total mother mode and started saying, “It’s going to be okay, we’re fine. You’re an athlete, we can do this. Just think of it as a hardcore workout that we have to get done”. I started paddling on the right side only because of how strong the winds were. (paddling on the right side only, kept us straight!) I couldn’t paddle next to my side because the wind and waves only turned my board back around in the opposite direction. I knew then that I had to reach to the very front of my board in order to keep it straight and facing the Island where we needed to go. (Maui is surrounded by two other small islands on the Kaanapali/Lahaina side with big ocean gaps in between) I kept saying to Chelsea, “we’re not going to make it back” (as we paddled hard against the wind and the waves). She kept reminding me that we were okay and that everything was going to be fine. She knew she had to calm me down so I didn’t kill both of us. I finally kept my mouth shut because I knew I was exhausted from yelling and flipping off my board/getting back on it. So I just started paddling as hard as I could. My thoughts at first when I panicked instantly went to death and what that was going to be like, what drowning was going to be like. I remember thinking about how it felt like I hadn’t done anything in my life and how quickly death can come. I started to pray while I was paddling. I asked God for forgiveness and I asked that he remember me. We are not in control, God is in control. We do not know when our time has come or when that time will be, but I put all of my trust in the Lord.

I was so sore from paddling that I wanted to start crying, but I didn’t. I didn’t cry because I knew that it would take all of my energy out of me and I wouldn’t be able to paddle anymore, so I kept on going. We couldn’t stop paddling for a break because if we did we would just get pushed back out further away. As I was paddling and I wanted to stop, I started thinking about the movie Chasing Mavericks. The specific scene when the boy had to paddle out for training. I thought, if people do this for training, I can do it. After a couple min went by, I got up on my knees and waved my paddle for two seconds and got back down and kept paddling. We were so far out that we were in a new current and my goal was to get back to the light blue water. After I thought of that, I told myself that my next goal would be the coral reefs, and then the light blue water again, and then the shore. It takes baby steps to get where you’re going, not one. If I only thought of the end goal and I didn’t work my way up to the end goal, I would have stopped because It would have seemed too far (and I already kept saying that we weren’t going to make it back from the beginning, because I was only focused on the shore and I wasn’t staying calm at first). I set little goals in between in order to reach the big goal which was making it back to the island, anywhere on the island. I paddled hard again and got back high on my knees to wave my paddle in hopes that someone would see and come help us just in case we didn’t make it back. (This was the most scared I have been) Once I got my balance and set my small goals in order to reach my big goals, I started to calm down. I focused on my breathing and slowed my heart rate. I made it to the light blue water….I was getting so tired and I knew that I still couldn’t stop because the wind would just take us back out, so I started praying out load. I said, “Lord give me the strength to get back to shore because I feel so weak. Lord give me the strength because I don’t have it, Lord please give me the strength to get back”. I finally saw a man wave his arms at me when I waved my paddle again and quickly got back down and kept paddling towards him. I made it to the coral reefs, (checking behind me to make sure Chelsea was still there, and she was) and then the light blue water. The man yelled out to me that Coast Guard was on their way! Right in that moment, I wanted to stop paddling and lay on my board, but I didn’t. I kept paddling all the way back until I made it to shore. There were a bunch of rocks where we ended up and the man got out and grabbed my hand to help me. My knees were so sore trying to straighten them because of how long they were bent. I was shaking not just from being scared but from how exhausted I was from paddling back against the wind and the waves about two miles. Another man grabbed my paddle board as the Coast Guard was walking up. The gentlemen who helped us brought me water because my mouth was so dry from the salt water. In that moment I wanted to just start crying but I didn’t because my mind went straight to the Lord and the fact that I made it back to shore! Chelsea got back a few min after me and the Coast Guard just grabbed her paddle board and brought it back onto shore while the others helped her out. She is AMAZING you guys, because she stayed calm the entire time and constantly reminded me that we were going to be okay….and that I was an athlete (lol).

We thanked everyone who was there to help us and we were about a mile down from where we started. People offered to give us a ride back to our hotel/beach but we grabbed our boards and started walking back. As soon as I saw my husband walking toward us on the main road, we basically dropped our paddle boards and hugged him! It was such a relief to see him.

Later that evening, we all went out to get shaved ice. While we were standing in line waiting, my husband leaned across me and pointed to a sign that was hanging in the store and said, “we need to buy that sign!”. The sign read, Be Your Own Hero. It was a moment of joy! Unfortunately, that sign wasn’t for sale but I’ll never forget it.

I took away from that experience, that I am stronger than I think and to stay calm in all situations, because panic kills you. Panic will exhaust your energy and you will lose. I also realized that in every situation I’m in, it’s going to be okay because God is with me. I know that I will panic in other situations naturally, but I will always remember that I made it back to shore.

Philippians 1:21 “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”