During my teen years my parents owned a sailboat which became the family “toy” for weekends and midsummer evenings. We spent many hours sailing on the St. Johns River, racing around buoys, or just lounging on the deck in the evenings enjoying the quietness of the docks. Sailing was the second love of my life next to music back then, so it was no surprise my high school graduation present was a used Hobie 10—a small little 10’monohull sailboat. It was smaller than a Sunfish (14’) and not gaff rigged either.  My mother said it looked like a bathtub—just an elongated triangle with a 6 inch indention in the middle to “sit” in.  I loved this little sailboat and learned to maneuver it quite well, but there was one thing I didn’t ever want to do with it— often you see catamarans and small sailing crafts flipped over because they’re small, lightweight and the wind can overpower them easily. But I had an intense fear of flipping it, not because I was afraid of the water, I knew how to swim and I had on a life vest; and not that I didn’t know what to do to right it back up afterwards, but simply because I had never done it before. I had never experienced flipping it—I had this great fear of the “unknown”.            There are many unknowns in our life, aren’t there? Personally, we don’t always know what our finances will be month to month, what our itinerary will be later this year, if my son will make the soccer team again, will the refrigerator keep holding out, etc. You have some of the same unknowns too, I’m sure. They used to terrify me. I don’t like surprises—I like to know what’s in the future. But God won’t always tell me. (Surprise!) He wants me to trust Him with my future and take away my fear. That “unknown” fear wants to come in on me and hold me back from moving forward. Hold me back from experiencing all that Father God has for me.  So one day I decided I needed to flip my little sailboat. I needed to experience what would really happen if I did. The fear that had kept me holding on dearly when the wind picked up, even hanging out over the side as the boat heeled over, had held me long enough. I needed to face it. The wind was strong that day so I tacked into it heeling way over. I turned into beam reach, the fastest point of sail, and over I went. I pulled the tiller toward me hard, saw the mast about to touch the water, then slid right out of that little bathtub into the water on the port side. Everything stopped as I bobbed around in my life vest. I was okay, the boat was okay, and you know what else? It was really fun! I swam around to the other side, leaned on the centerboard and my little boat righted itself up out of the water just fine. I climbed back on laughing, then pulled the lines in, straightened the tiller out and took off flying into the stiff breeze again enjoying my newly found freedom from fear. In fact, later on I flipped it several times because I realized that as I got sweaty from the hot sun, I could easily flip, slide into the water and cool off. I had experienced it now and knew it was okay.  These days when the “unknowns” come my way, I’m still afraid a little. But as I’ve experienced Father’s love in a greater way in my life, getting it deeper and deeper into my heart, I know that even when my circumstances and situations are unknown, He’s my life vest that keeps me bobbing around and helps me “right” my way and climb back aboard to keep moving forward. There are still many unknowns I don’t know about (and always will be), but what I do know and have experienced is that I can “flip” into Father’s arms and “cool off” knowing that He’s in full control and He’s done it all before. Have you experienced His love? Flip and slide into it.