You gotta get in the water

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
—Matthew 7:7-8

Have you ever lost something of real value? Paycheck, wallet, car title, birth certificate, wedding license, wedding ring? Do you remember the sense of dread that overwhelmed you? The frantic desire to look everywhere? The frustration of discovering it was nowhere to be found? Or the overwhelming joy of finding the lost?

I tease my wife by saying that I never lose my stuff. Instead of thinking things are lost; I choose to always know where my stuff is. Such as knowing that the car keys are in the house … I just can’t put my hands on them!

One day at the dock I fell and hit the railing that stripped my wedding ring from my finger. Up in the air it went and when it came down it was 20 feet away in 26 feet of dark murky water. It all happened in slow motion. As I lay on the dock transfixed by the growing ring of ripples left where my ring entered the harbor murk I realized then if I was to find it that I must make it "bigger." So I grabbed a screw driver and tied on a length of line and tossed it to the center of the ring of ripples hoping that if I could find the screw driver, I could also find my ring.

My ring wasn’t lost…I knew exactly where it was…the bottom of the harbor. I just couldn’t put my hands on it.

Being a SCUBA diver I knew I had to try. With the lake in high flood stage, the floating docks moving around and the water murkier than chocolate milk, my chances were slim to none and it appeared that slim was leaving town.

We headed home three hours away. All I could think of was my ring and how would I ever find it? Friends advised me to get the insurance money and another ring. But that was "our" ring and being a sentimental sort, I couldn’t give up easily.

I spoke with the local dive shop who shared tales of searching for valuables underwater. Their counsel was good and they talked me through searching in close to zero visibility.

Sitting at breakfast the morning of the first search, all I could do was look at the harbor waters and wonder what I was going to encounter down there. I dragged breakfast out forever. I really did not want to get into that water. But I realized this:

If I was going to get the ring, I had to get in the water. If you are going to get anything precious to you in your life, you gotta "get in the water;" you have to start, difficult and scary though it may be.

So with Cathy on the dock warning fishermen and yachts, I got in the water each of the next six weekends, spending over eight hours groping through muck, finding all kinds of stuff but no ring. Until the day I found the line and the screw driver. Feeling my way around where the screw driver lay, I found the ring 15 minutes later.

You have not lost that dream for living, or the health that might be eluding you, or the education you have always wanted to start, or the new changes you have wanted to introduce to your unit, clinic or practice. No, you have not lost them at all, you know exactly where they are…they lie in front of you waiting for you to "get in the water" and with hard diligent effort, come to the moment where you lay your hands on your "precious" — your dream!