This tune…
You’ll never forget it. February, 2006. One of the darkest moments of your life. Your arrogance had finally caught up with you, and you knew it. You were too good to apply for the jobs that you really ought to have been focusing on. You’d been ballooning your debt to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a stupid apartment that you thought you deserved.
Oh you had it coming all right. You were about to lose your home. Not a house, just an apartment… but with the kind of debt you had compiled, and new government regulations from the Comptroller of the Currency – some bureaucratic agency you’d never even heard of – you had to learn your lesson.
You cried, feeling like you were a failure. Knowing it. You were supposed to be the one that overcame problems like this. You were supposed to be the one that people looked up to.
But not anymore. Now you would be the guy living on his parents couch at age 30. Yeah… you of all people…
That $1000 a month apartment you thought you could somehow afford on your beloved Queen Street… yeah the house of cards came tumbling down. You had lost everything and had finished packing….
…Ready to leave your beloved Holy City with your tail between your legs.
You had packed all night. But there was no way you were going to sleep. And sure as hell no way you would sleep now. So you did what you always did when you had insomnia… you walk to the streets of downtown Charleston….
…And wound up staring tearfully out to sea at Waterfront Park.
You thought you had had a charmed existence; like thanks to lessons you had learned you were done learning lessons. Now you would be humiliated by your standards…
…and your tears rained down.
Until you saw them. Something you knew that swam around in the harbor From time to time that you had only seen once or twice.
A pair of dolphins. The good luck charm of the sea. Of home.
And in that moment, the tears stopped. The dread didn’t. The pain didn’t. But the tears did.
You knew that you were going to be fine. You didn’t know how, when, or why. But you knew you would be fine.
In that moment you’d learned the lesson that God was teaching you, and exile from home… wasn’t a death sentence…
…but a second chance…
There was peace in your heart. Peace that has not since departed you even now over 13 years later.
What you would give to be able to share that peace with those so dear to you…
So do it.
Be that peace in their lives. Find joy in your heart so rich and full that you fill them with it as the sight of those dolphins filled you with it.
Joy. Peace. In the face of uncertain futures and seemingly insurmountable odds. You had to find them to learn your lesson.
And when you need to remember… just listen to the tune… and go straight back to February 2006, Waterfront Park, and those blessed dolphins.
Never, ever let them go. I mean that would just be really stupid…lolz 😂
It’s Not a Frame of Mind 