For all of us there are some days or even weeks where we just feel as though nothing of importance happens. It’s where life takes over and small tasks are started and then set aside. When replaying my life over these are the bits that can easily be edited out. I believed that until I heard Kevin Biggat talk about day two of his rowing race.

His notes read - we were hit by strong winds that built up to the point that we weren’t making any progress at all. The temptation was to put out our sea anchor (imagine a parachute that you lower into the water off the front of the boat). You get to have a rest but while you’re doing so, you’re slowly drifting backwards. 

We knew that there were some pretty tough crews in the race, who almost certainly weren’t going to flinch at this first hurdle, and if they weren’t going to stop then neither could we.

So, we kept on rowing and had a very lousy and frequently frightening night out at sea right at the limits of our endurance. Watching the GPS closely it was all we could do to stay in the same place. Lunchtime the next day we called up our shore crew to find out our race position. 

They said ‘Whatever you’re doing keep it up.’ We said ‘why?’. They said ‘You’ve got a 25-mile lead on the rest of the fleet’. We thought ‘This is great! We’ve stayed in the same spot and now we’re 25 miles in front!’

Every now and then you hear a story, read a snippet in a newspaper or see a banner on a magazine and you just know those words are for you. That somehow these were written down so that you could hear them at that time in this place. 

On that day, in that place when I heard Kevin’s story about treading water and yet gaining ground - it hit me in the head like a plank of wood. It was such a great visual teaching tool for this child that adores mental pictures. 

I had been stuck for about six months. I had been doing everything ‘right’ according to the rule book of my life but I was still alone and lonely. I had broken up with a lovely man who I adored because he didn’t believe in God the same way I did. I was trying so hard to get it all right that I had walked away from someone I cared about because of Christian paper work! 

I walked home to my beach house in Plimmerton on that Friday night and knew that I had been treading water for months while I waited for my head to catch up to my heart.  My head knew in that moment that Greg was my person, that God loves us both to bits and that its all going to be just fine.

After that was our “happily ever after” and I have felt cherished every day since. 

This past week has been like treading water for me - a good head day followed by a bad night’s sleep etc. I’m not terribly sure I accomplished a thing. 

However, I now happily embrace treading water - it brought me the love of my life.