“Surfer Girl”

I know that thismorning is two words, not one, but I don’t ever seem to know it in the middle of writing it. Lots of things are like that for me. I can teach it, sing about it, pray about it, write about it, see it in the lives of others ancient and modern, but when it comes right down to life, my life, my thoughts, my deepest feelings, sometimes I forget. The it that I forget is my knowledge of the love of the Lord for me, my love of Him, and the massive evidence compiled in all the moments prior to this one, that He has the love and direction and power necessary to care for me and enable me to do His will in the present moment.

I can always tell when my rememberer is on low power. There are signs. It shows in the scrambled way I feel: anxious, frightened, angry, overwhelmed and under qualified, confused…the list is probably endless. My inability to recall the divine also shows in what I do: I panic, I start collecting opinions from anyone and everyone on the best course to take, and I do anything but the task that seems absolutely daunting, last years mending, cleaning the drawer under the oven etc. Finally, when my memory of the divine starts shutting down I crave my drug of choice, excess food, something, anything for comfort.

Thismorning (there I go again) as I began to make an account of my day on paper and feeling some of the above signs, the melody to an old 50s song came into my mind. Would the Lord really speak to me through an old 50s song? I guess so! As I began to put words to the tune that was playing in my mind suddenly and to my surprise I had tears in my eyes. “Do you love me? Do you surfer girl?”

“What? Is that what I am Lord, a surfer girl? How so?”

I immediately thought of the modern activity of “surfing the net,” where one browses the Internet endlessly for needed information or help with a problem. We browse broadly through a dumping ground of information contributed by experts and con artists, searching for any answer to meet our particular need.

“Dearest Lord, though I have very little experience with the Internet and none with a surfboard, I have been a surfer girl haven’t I. I have years of experience “surfing” or searching for the perfect answer, the perfect activity, the perfect plan, the perfect day. And just like an Internet search, there is no end to it, always searching and never satisfied.” One of the great blessings of living the principles of recovery is that I am coming to know that the answer doesn’t lie in a day where everything on my list is finally checked off.

In closing this little thought I have to do a 5th Step right here and admit to all of you that my curiosity got the best of me. After all, I was a little girl when this song was popular and I wanted to see if any of the words to the song went along with the message in the title, so...I went to the Internet and had a look!

There were three lines that continued to speak to me. First, "Little surfer, little one, make my heart come all undone." Peace and real joy are arrived at when I remember to remember every new day that my wandering about, my incessant search outside of Him does “make His heart come all undone.” Second, "I have seen you on the shore, standing by the ocean's roar." He is aware of me and my every situation. He sees me on the shore of any daunting task and is aware like no other of the "oceans roar.” And third, "So I say from me to you, I can make your dreams come true." That is His promise to me. My real dreams, the ones I've dreamed for an eternity, only He can make "come true.”

I want to show Him by the direction I turn for the answers to life’s daily quandaries and the place I run when the |oceans roar becomes frightening, that my answer to the question, “Do you love Me, do you surfer Girl?” is a resounding yes!

By Nannette W.
Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008

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