Some days it is like Jesus is taking a nap on a cushion in the back of my boat while it is filling up with water and I’m sinking fast.
Or it’s just the laundry room floor filling up with water and my hopes are sinking fast. Which happens like clockwork every winter for the last eight years. A frozen drain pipe. Sometimes frozen water pipes. But either way, it ends the same. I’m in tears, knee-deep in wet clothes, and trying to figure out when I will be able to make it to the laundromat.
Over the years we developed a strategy for coping with the annual drain pipe freeze. If the weather predicts anything below 20 degrees for more than a day, we shift into Emergency Laundry Mode. That means I do as much laundry as possible in as little time as possible. A completely empty hamper is the goal. If I can get the clothes off our backs into the machine before the cold hits, I do that. When it’s all clean, dry, folded, and put away. I high-five myself. That is until one article of clothing hits the bottom of the hamper because I know it will be days before I will be able to wash clothes again. It’s not fun but it’s efficient, and it avoids the anxiety that comes with the dreaded drain cycle.
But, recently I took a gamble. The weather had been consistently in the mid-twenties. I had some laundry to do, not a ton but enough. It was below 20 degrees but it was a sunny day. The “trouble wall” where these pipes run faces southwest, so we get a lot of passive solar heat when it’s sunny. I shoved the clothes in and flipped the switch, then settled back into my office chair for work, feeling pretty accomplished and grateful that I work from home.
When I could hear the water gushing I sprinted to the laundry room and hit the stop button. Fortunately, I had caught it before the full washer load of water had drained onto the floor, but despite the amount of water, my reaction is always the same: disaster has struck, I’m going down with the ship, the house is ruined, and I’m a failure. And why am I the only one awake for this?
In those moments, I often find myself pleading: Jesus, would you please wake up? Don’t you care that I’m freaking out?
It’s funny how predictable my response is—and how familiar it feels when I think about the disciples in their own storm.
A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:37-38)
They didn’t wake him up and say, “Can you make this storm stop?” or “Can you do something about these waves?” I imagine it like this: Where’s Jesus? Asleep? Doesn’t he care that we’re all gonna die? Go wake him up and hand him a bucket!
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Like the disciples frantically bailing water, I’m over here with my laundry schedules and breathing exercises trying hard to manage the storm myself instead of trusting that I might not actually die. Hey, I’m not trashing on coping mechanisms. For more, see Emergency Laundry Mode above. I’ve got strategies on strategies for dealing with anxiety-provoking situations. (I’ve actually said the words out loud that I would drive a hundred miles out of my way to avoid the interstate. And it’s true.) As a high-functioning anxiety person, I over-plan and overthink to avoid the things that are the hardest for me. Add to that some tools I have added over the years like supplements, mood tracking, journaling, and breathing exercises and these do help me quiet the storms when they come (or at least prevent them from raging on).
I imagine like most good boatmen, the disciples had their tools—things and techniques they used when they needed them to keep themselves safe and the boat seaworthy. They were a capable crew, this was not their first bit of rough water. But this time it was particularly nasty. And they panicked.
When they woke Jesus up, he didn’t grab a bucket and start bailing. He didn’t drop an anchor. He didn’t tie knots or lower the sails or don a life vest. He did what they were not expecting in a thousand years. He said, “Quiet! Be still!”
“The wind ceased and there was a great calm.”
Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”
Notice when Jesus asked them this question. He didn’t ask them in the middle of the squall when they were in total Emergency Mode. He asked them in the middle of the great calm. When they could hear him.
Here’s the thing: after that particular flood, we finally had some work done on the house to try and prevent the pipes from freezing again. It has helped, but it probably didn’t fix everything. The storms will still come, just in different forms.
I would like to be able to return to this when my life feels overwhelming. When the mess is knee-deep and rising, despite all my tools and strategies. Is Jesus going to help me bail? Maybe he’s planning to do something I would never expect. Maybe he’d like me to be quiet; be still.
The disciples thought the storm was the problem. I usually think my laundry room is the problem. But maybe the real question isn’t, “Why is this happening?” Maybe it’s, “Do you trust me, even here?”
Because even when it feels like he’s asleep, Jesus is still in my boat.
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