Sonrise Magazine

Fighting seasickness with a job to do, Cindy calls on the Lord to still the waters and learns about the prayer of faith

A research vessel in turbulent waters. Artwork by Jeanie Walls

By Cindy Jaeger

The year was 1978. As a young woman who recently accepted the Lord, I wanted to learn how to fight the spiritual battle. I prayed and went into the world to see what would happen in the heat of battle. At this time, in the late 1970’s I had a pastor named Joe.

Joe kept reminding us: If we plant seed, it will surely grow. Don’t pay attention to what your feelings are. Just be diligent to plant the word, confessing it to your soul. So I said to myself, “I’ll at least try. I think I’ll just confess out of the book Prayers That Availeth Much. Most of the topics in there ought to cover the subject I touch.”

So praying and confessing the word over and over again, all I had faith for was to believe that the scriptures would never return void. I figured I’d better grasp that promise tightly in hand. But, it didn’t feel like much was happening. Then one day I thought, “I think I would like my heavenly Father to set up a situation where I could be on the water.”

I didn’t state a time or a specific boat. I didn’t care. I just thought it would be fun to ask my provider for a nice surprise. Maybe I’d go sailing this summer. He knows I’m an ecologist or a biologist at heart, and his scenic creations are a wonder. He knows me so well. Any activity that deals with water blesses me a lot under his wide blue yonder.

You can imagine my delight the next day when I arrived at work as a lab tech for Metro Environmental Laboratory and read on the daily schedule, my initials right on the bulletin board: CCJ (that’s me!), MP, and SJ for Puget Sound pickup. We three were assigned on a boat to collect water samples for Metro. The situation tickled my fancy and I laughed, and was thoroughly pleased. God loves me. He does! He heard my request and he immediately granted it to me. I won’t be sequestered in the lab again today.

So the guys told me, “Come on, go get your gear. But there is a 90% chance we’re not really sampling today. There’s a storm coming and we’ll just check it out. There is a good chance this will be a dry run because we won’t be sampling at sea.”

At that point I thought, “Well, really, I don’t mind.” We’ll make an effort to get this run and then come back. I still felt in my spirit so sublime. It sounded like a vacation from the labor we usually try to do.  “What a grand sport,” I thought. “I think it’s sad how negative my buddies can be.” It was a good thing God was talking to me.

So I went ahead and gathered my rain gear just in case we really were able to put this sampling run into full gear. We stopped at McDonald’s, which is part of the game. Let’s stoke up on some fuel for our bodies just the same. Then we’ll drive to Shilshole Marina to get on the boat without too much delay.

We were warming up the diesel engines and stashing our sampling equipment for this particular run. We hadn’t left the dock yet. Along came our alternate pilot, who yelled at us,

“Hey, you’re not really gonna take the Liberty out today. Do you really think you can sample with a storm forecasted that way?”

“Well,” the man said, “we don’t really know yet, but we can do what we can do. Probably have to drive the Liberty out to test the conditions a bit.”

So off we went. Pulling out of the marina, I wasn’t worried. I kept thinking, I’m still delighted. Who cares what’s going to happen? As long as we go, I won’t feel slighted.”

We launched out, and in time found ourselves in the middle of Puget Sound. There was a chop to the water that began to make me feel queasy. Oops, I now realized: in the excitement, I completely forgot about my tendency towards seasickness! That brought me up short. I remembered the last time I went to sea and my favorite ecology Scripture, the one that speaks of mountains and casting them into the sea. Well, that certainly seemed appropriate for me…Oh yeah….Here we go again, Lord…“I’d better have faith right now,” I thought, with my stomach churning a bit more, “or it will be too late.”

As I prayed in English, I wasn’t seeing much change in the situation, and realized it was time to move from English to tongues. As I prayed in the Holy Spirit, the thought came to me: I’m just thinking, and not taking much action.

So I thought, “Hey, Cindy…you better bind fear and unbelief or else you won’t see any immediate relief. And last time you were here, you didn’t tell your buddies that God would still the waters for you…I think I’ll be honest and tell my partner what’s happening to me.”

My partner thought I should eat crackers for a cure. Now I knew that wasn’t going to work for sure. Meanwhile, the storm continued and I started to pale. This isn’t too bad…except for the chop from a tug now too, and my partner calling for assistance to lower the sampling rig call (the CTD) with a winch over the side and into the sea.

Just a minute, Lord, I’ll be right back to finish intercession with you. I have to go on a station break for a minute or two.

While I was out on deck, I surveyed the situation. Our pilot yelled, “It’s only 10 knot winds out of the south.”

“Well, really that shouldn’t matter to sampling,” I figured. Although my head was hurting and my stomach too, I thought, “This is weird. I shouldn’t be sick. I’m the one who wanted to be out here!” After we finished that little stint, I returned to my cabin to finish my prayer. I noticed a few circuits in my faith were shorted.

Get rid of unbelief and fear and procrastination, or whatever. Now…reconnect with God’s love for me and faith, and especially mercy and grace in a time of need….Now speak to your circumstance and tell it to leave. The waves have to quiet themselves or at least be at ease.

I took a peek at the waves. They looked the same. What could be the matter? Oh, I know! I forgot to let go of the problem. It’s not my concern now. I’ve done all that I possibly can. God will do it. I went outside. Once again. I returned to the cabin and was lying down. Soon I forgot what I was praying about. Then all of the sudden I jumped up with a shout.

“Hey, you guys! look out there! The waves are still now!”

I hadn’t been aware till now.

I shouldn’t have been so amazed. He did it again. God did it for me. Now my sickness was gone

And we continued the run. When we finished sampling and returned to the lab, everyone was amazed that we were able to complete the task. What a day. What a day. I’m still rejoicing. Do you know what this means? The seed words that were planted in my heart and soul, the boldness, the confidence in my spirit have finally sprouted. Yay for the victory. It’s not perfected yet, but it’s coming along because God showed it to me.

So the moral of the story, Joe, is that you were right: If we plant seed, it will surely grow! Don’t pay attention to what your feelings are. Just be diligent to plant the word, confessing it to your soul.