Beneath the Surface

Recently I took a trip to Florida for a week by myself—to rest, walk the beach and swim in the ocean every day. I knew it was a bit risky to swim alone, and on occasion it crossed my mind that if I didn’t come out of the ocean on any given day, no one would have known—at least not for a day or two. That thought didn’t bother me too much until one day when the danger became more real.

On this day, I was swimming and floating in the surf when a fisherman came running down the beach yelling, “Get out of the water! Get out of the water!” I swam as hard as I could toward the shore, and…