Imagine a sailboat as our own life journey. Each of us, regardless of our merits or failures, will encounter waves of experience. There will be highs, when we ride the crest, shooting toward the goal, feeling free and uplifted. They will be followed by dips into the troughs of troubles, with threatening waters on all sides, slowed and wallowing, feeling queasy and uncertain about the future.

On a sailboat, knowledge helps. Sailboats are nearly impossible to capsize; they truly will ride the waves except in “the perfect storm.” The boat is the place of security; our task is to stay on it, to abandon neither the boat nor the journey. If we hold on, the vessel will take us through the waves to calmer waters.

The spiritual equivalent to the sailboat is Christ, the love of God personified. Whether rising with the crests or descending with the troughs, if we grasp tightly via faith to the knowledge that nothing can separate us from the love of God, we will come safely through the seas.