A ship sank. Hope going down with the ship, members hurled themselves onto a life boat. They paddled furiously for survival. On the horizon, they saw land. Waves beat their small boat with a fury. “Why would fate kill us once we saw land? Why didn’t it kill us when the ship first went down?the crew thought. Suddenly a wave of energy washed over them filling their hearts and oars with the will to survive.

What we need to get through will come when we need it most.

Our focus in challenging times must go toward putting the oar back into the water, one stroke at a time. We may feel afraid and hopeless but to arrive on shore put the oar into the water and paddle.

Image credit: Thanks to S Alb for sharing their work on Unsplash.

Story inspired by: “Open Boat” by Stephen Crane at https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the-open-boat.pdf.