Late in the afternoon, Christopher was swimming near his father when he got caught in a current, and his dad paddled rapidly to retrieve him.“We were both just sucked out,” Marino told Lauer. “The forces just took us out so quickly, it totally took me by surprise.”

I read an Andy Stanley vacation story as part of our family devotions yesterday.  He remembered when he was young, going to the beach with his family in the camper.  One year, he said, the under-tow (or under-current) in the ocean was especially strong.  Now, the under-current is the water undre the surface that can pull you away from the shore, either down the beach from where you were, or, more dangerously, out to sea.    Do you remember a father and his autistic son, last year, spent 2 or 3 days out at sea floating until they were rescued...all because of the current?    Andy said he remembered swimming on the first day and after a little while looking back at the beach and wondering "why did dad move the trailer?"  In fact, 'dad' hadn't moved the trailer, it was still in the same place his dad had parked it, but the under-current had slowly pulled him more than 40 yards down the beach.  The amazing part about this, is that, you never realize that you're moving away from safety while this is happening.   Swimmers get themselves into trouble like this for two reasons.  1) It's happening so smoothly, that they don't realize they're moving...because everything around them is moving in that same direction...away from safety. and 2) the swimmer is paying attention to something fun or his activity in the water, or someone else, and he fails to look back to the shore.    Andy said his dad was worried about this happening and becoming dangerous to the kids. So, he setup a pyramid of coconuts 30 yards down the beach.  he told the kids, "when you find that you've drifted past that pyramid, get out of the water, walk back down the beach, and then get back in where it's safe.   So, the lesson?  Well, it's pretty clear.  You don't have to give up all of your fun in order to be safe.  That's only one lesson to learn.  Another is that we need to set up "points of reference" in our lives and make sure to look at them often to make sure that we're not drifting away.  Because if we don't, it will happen so slowly, so smoothly, that you won't even be aware of it until you look around one day later and ask, "how in the world did i get this far away from my dad?"

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