ife Tamara Dyrud Schierkolk is a 1988 graduate of Middle River High School. This small-town girl is now a city-dweller living in the Twin Cities. She writes for several publications, hoping to inspire others to love their neighbors well because life is just better that way.
www.tamarajorell.com
I’m an eight year old again, singing with my Sunday School peers.
“I’ve got love like an ocean, I’ve got love like an ocean, I’ve got love like an ocean in my soul--” and maybe my arms – or my friend’s arms – extend so far we bonk the kids next to us. Because an ocean is wide, and our arm spans are too as we act out the song’s lyrics.
Love like an ocean. It’s the third verse of the song – after peace like a river and joy like a fountain. And the memories wash in.
A lifetime passes, and I run on a treadmill in our Hawaiian hotel in January of 2021. The fitness room overlooks the black lava rocks of Kailua-Kona’s shore. Running steals my breath, but the massive windows showcase the power of the ocean and steal it further. Outside, waves explode against rocks, spraying water so high I would cower if a window didn’t separate us.
The simile lies outside the glass, yet I feel an ocean of terrifying, exhilarating, and overwhelming love ripping through my soul. And in its crushing power, it levels the papery love notes and sweetheart candies of the February holiday we just enjoyed.
The treadmill is a simile too, and I can’t outrun a love so big, so fearsome, so vast. As a kid singing the song, I didn’t know the intensity of a love like that, but I’ve lived long enough now to have glimpsed it.
Love like an ocean.
The theme pulls like a rip current, and I find a journal entry I wrote last week to the Valentine of my soul: Crash into my perspective, plans, and purpose. You are the water, holding me up, surrounding me, flooding into the spaces of my life. I don’t have to let You do it; I can stay out of the ocean and let my life go dry. Instead, I swim.
Husband creates culinary delights for the girls and me every Valentine’s Day. He has worked his kitchen magic for us for at least twelve years. In January, he leaks his menu, so we can drool over the thought of it a month early. And each year, we expand our guest list, which includes the single, the lonely, or both–and me. We enjoyed Spicy Salmon Crispy Rice and Vermicelli Bang Bang Shrimp this year as Husband’s first two dishes of seven. These seafood choices remind me of the deep calling to deep of God’s breakers and waves rolling over me, and I smile--at the memories of dinner and the larger-than-life affection I splash in daily.
Love like an ocean.
