The White Rock

When I was a kid I took swimming lessons for three summers at the local lake in Hope, Rhode Island. Those were some of the best summers I have ever had. Every day all of the kids/teens in the county would run down to the snake infested, snapping turtle growing, tadpole gathering, cold lake and meet up with their swimming instructors. Every age was a different group. All the younger kids looked up to the teens. To be in the teen group meant you had arrived. But, I wasn't quite there yet. So, I had to settle for one of the younger groups. Everyone would find a spot on the beach or in the grass to lay out their towels and claim their territory. All of my friends and I would make sure we were together and making sure everyone else knew it. There was a snack hut where every day at around 12 o'clock everyone would stand in line and buy some of the greatest candy ever invented. Foot long bubble gum sticks, pixy sticks by the dozens, sweedish fish....oh, yeah, those were the days. Then after everyone had finished their snacks we would all play a game. My favorite was capture the flag. Only we didn't use a flag, we used towels. Everyone would roll up their towels and make a huge line across the field. Then on each far end of the field would be the bases. Towels would be piled up in a half circle to protect the "flag" or towel. Imagine, three hundred screaming teens/kids running around.... Total chaos! Stinking awesome! Then throughout the day everyone would have lessons. That first plung in the water was horrible. It was always dreaded by everyone. But, every morning your group would be lined up at one of the two docks and one at a time you would be forced to jump in. The shock of that cold water was like a thousand needles hitting you all at once. But, once that was over, you were fine. My favorite part was finaly learning how to canoe. We would all put on these huge orange life jackets and canoe around part of the lake. Snapping turtles sat watching us from fallen trees and logs on the shores. Then when we got far out into the lake our instructor made us get out of the canoe and flip it over. We were all terrified. There was a story about a giant croc that lived in the lake and ate people who went too far out in it. Now I know that it wasn't true, but at the time, it was like facing death. Shivering, we would all swim as quickly as we could, pushing the canoe, glancing at one another, and flinching every time a long weed would grab our legs under the water. No one would say a word. When we reached the shore we would all lay down on the dock and stare out at the lake. No one dared saying what they knew was out there. But, after a couple of years we got older and realized that the croc was just a bunch of croc the teens came up with to scare the wits out of us. Then came the final test. When you had reached the final year of instruction, you would have to swim across the lake to the white rock. You were not given a life jacket and you were forced to do it all alone. It was to test what you had learned about survival. The one's who passed would take a stone and write their name on the rock. Unfortunately, my name is not written on that rock. We had to move away before I was able to complete what I had started. But, years later at my uncle's birthday party, my dad and I took a canoe out on to the lake. When he was a kid/teen he finished all of the swimming instructions at the lake. He loved that lake so much, he knew where everything was. He took me all over that lake to places I never knew existed. We talked about the white rock and how that was the most important spot on that lake. You know what? All the disappointment I had felt before about not making it to that rock had faded away. A lot of times that is how life is. We try so hard to reach this goal and then it doesn't happen. You feel cheated and upset. Then later on you realize that there is much more out there than that goal you set for yourself. God knows what is best. Sometimes we don't get what we want because He has something better out there for us. It isn't about what we want, it's about what God wants. Believe me, his will is so much greater than ours.