It's funny how some memories simply disappear for good while others stick with you, clear as day.
And there doesn't always seem to be rhyme or reason to it all. Sometimes important and influential moments completely fade away; names and faces and dates and details just gone. While the most random and seemingly insignificant minutes of the past just plaster themselves right into the permanent scrapbooks of your mind.
What decides which stay and which go?
Then there are other memories. Though long faded and forgotten, they can suddenly, almost violently, be hurdled back to mind by a specific scent or a taste or even a sound or touch.
For example. I was digging through a bin of way too many lotions and body sprays a year ago or so and came across a random lip gloss. I didn't recognize the tube, but the second that I smelled it while applying it just for the heck of it, I was transported back 9 years to my first semester of college.
I could suddenly see my dorm room double vanity mirror. I could see my roommate Brodie's Duke t-shirt she always lounged in and could hear Tessa listening to Eye of the Tiger by Katy Perry at 4am getting ready for her job. I could see the face of my first college kiss. Football games, classmates, study sessions, dates, Sunday school, walks to campus, my job with my best friend, eating animal crackers with Nutella (it was a serious phase) - sounds, sights, feels, tastes, smells. It all flooded in, unrestrained.
That same powerful transportation happened again this week, but, rather than with lipgloss, with my Bible.
I was getting ready to dive in, but instead of using my newer set of scriptures, I grabbed my old ones from my high school days. Right as I opened to Matthew 14, the thin and fragile page fell to the floor. It has been like that for years - detached from the glueing that holds the book together. I picked it up and saw some bold words written at the top of the page:
The Great Multiplier and Constant Catcher.
Instantly I was taken back to the day I wrote those words. The day that Matthew 14 became etched forever in my heart.
I was 17 years old, a senior in high school, and just absolutely spiritually bothered for some reason. I was feeling, like that page, detached. From my family, from myself, from my faith, from my God. I remember walking to my car to grab my scriptures before going to seminary. But when I got there I decided to just sit in it for a little bit. Doing nothing wasn't super fun, so I grabbed my scriptures sitting in the passenger seat, flipped open to a page that had a random paper insert stuck in it, and began to read.
Matthew 14. John the Baptist dies. Jesus feeds a multitude of 5000+. He walks on water. So does Peter. Nothing unfamiliar.
But this time, sitting in my car skipping seminary, I didn't see the stories.
I saw Jesus.
And I saw me.
This time, I was the fishes and loaves.
I was insufficient. I was overwhelmed at what was before me: college, a mission, dating a little more seriously, leaving my home and family, more financial responsibility, making new friends, leaving the comfortable and the known, feeling like a failure of a friend, an invisible daughter and sister, and an ill-prepared disciple of Christ. Life seemed daunting. Impossible. 5000+. And I was just 5 loaves and 2 fishes. Not enough, not up to the task. And not in a self-deprecating way, but in all reality - not enough.
Enter Jesus.
He said, Bring them hither to me.
And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.
And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. (Matthew 14:18-20)
A deficit became a surplus. Empty bellies became full. Worried disciples became faithful deacons.
And in between? Jesus. Messiah, The Great I AM, Jehovah, Savior, Multiplier.
Alone I would be insufficient, but in the Master's hands? He would make me more than enough. More than capable of facing what was to come. There would be, in turn, more of me to work with. More to give to others. And all I had to do was put all of myself, however little it seemed to be, in His hands.
Then I was Peter.
Eager to leave the boat. Eager to prove myself. Eager to be closer to Jesus. But unbelievably aware of the waves and winds around me.
Slowly beginning to sink.
Aware of Jesus, within His sight and reach even.
Witness to His feet oddly steady and sure on the rolling waves.
But also mortally aware of my own humanity, my weakness, my inevitability to fall.
And fall I did. Again and again and again.
Enter Jesus.
And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? (Matthew 14:31)
My 17 year old eyes seemed to really read that verse for the first time.
Jesus wasn't saying, "Stupid Peter (Ciara). How could you allow yourself to get distracted by the waves and the winds? Look at me! Have I taught you nothing? Where is your faith?"
No.
Jesus was saying, "Silly Peter (Ciara). Did you not believe I would catch you when you fell? And you are going to fall again. And again and again and again. But don't worry, I'll still be right here. I'll stretch forth my hand and catch you. Again and again and again. And, with time, we'll walk on water together. I'll show you how."
Falling has been factored in all along. Failing, faltering, coming up short. All of it. Factored in. A plan in motion, a Savior provided. A Constant Catcher, if you will, since I am constantly falling.
I ended up staying in my car for another hour. I figured what was happening there was more important than whatever was going to happen in Sports Medicine that day.
Since then, Matthew 14 has held a special place in my heart. The story of Peter walking on water has become my favorite scripture story and the inspiration for so many of my favorite pieces of Bible art.
I feel like the two accounts, the feeding of the 5000+ and Jesus on the water, teach us so simply about our entire purpose here.
We are here to get out of the boat. Leave comfortability and take leaps of faith toward God. Toward Jesus. We are here to learn how to trust them, reach for them, walk with them. We are meant to be among the winds and the waves, to fall from time to time, and to remember that we have a Savior who is risen and wants to lift us too, if we will but reach for Him, trust Him, follow Him. We are here to learn how to more easily put ourselves in His hands. Let Him bless us, maybe break us, and then distribute us to fill any emptiness of those around us. To mourn with those who also feel like they aren't enough. To comfort those who feel like they too are sinking.
And so, every time that darn page falls out of my worn out Bible, I simply wedge it back into place. Leaving it for future me to stumble upon and to be reminded of the One who offers to multiply me and catch me; again and again and again.
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