Protect me oh Lord for my boat is so small
My boat is so small and your sea is so wide
Protect me oh Lord."
--Prayer of Breton Fishermen
One of my best friends was very sick. He had had a long painful bout with cancer. We had known him and his family for thirty years. And so months before his death my wife and I drove several hundred miles just to be with them.
The day of his funeral we were far from home, sitting in a chapel service in England. All I could think about was this friend I had lost—and his grieving family back in the States. The preacher that night chose for his text the Mark passage of Jesus in the boat with the disciples. The Lord slept as a terrible storm shook the boat dangerously. The disciples were understandably terrified. They woke Jesus up and he stilled the troubled waters.
On the wall behind the speaker was a painting by a Chinese artist, Dr. He Qi. In the picture Jesus stood in the boat as the waves lashed and the wind blew. In the middle of that awful storm Jesus was there. At the end of the service we were given postcards of that event—Jesus in the boat protecting the frightened disciples. I sent that little picture back to my grieving friends in the states. I told them that Jesus was in the boat with them and somehow things would be all right.
Two years later my friend’s widow called me. She told me she would be getting married soon. Grief had been hard for her and her daughters. She still missed her husband and she said she stilled cried. Yet—she is slowly moving on.
When I get frightened for myself or those I love I remember this picture in Mark’s gospel. The waves may be high, the wind may blow ferociously—yet we are not alone.
Lord of winds and waves and fears and the unknown—help us to remember you are here and whatever the storm—you bring us peace. Amen
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