Rowing Together
Recently, my husband and I watched the movie The Boys in the Boat. It’s a great movie if you get a chance to watch it. It’s one of those rare jewels that leaves you feeling good at the end of it.
I don’t want to give it all away, but you need to know a few things to understand why it struck me. First of all, the rowing team is made up of 9 men in a boat; 8 men rowing and one man keeping them on track. The story is about these men who have no experience rowing, let alone doing it as a team. So they’re green. Really green. And the coach has his work cut out for him.
The key to the team’s success is learning to row together. The same rhythm at the same time. And they have to be attentive to the movements of each other so, in a sense, it isn’t 8 men, it’s 8 men making one boat glide through the water. You can imagine this effort takes practice and strength, and there are a lot of moments where it just isn’t working. But then there are moments when they hit their stride and they realize they can row together. A momentum is created when they are all working together.
It’s also not just about strength. It’s about being in the right mental space to be in sync with their own bodies but also with the other men in the boat.
Why am I prattling on about men in a boat? I loved this movie, not just because it was well done, but because it made me think of family life and the spiritual life and God. Imagine God puts your family in a boat - that’s life - and He expects you to row in a particular direction - toward Heaven. Your life is the boat and your family is your support system to get where you need to go. We happen to have 8 people in our family, so I can really picture us in a long boat. But maybe your boat has 2-4-6-10…whatever number. Either way, you’re in that boat together. And God wants you to learn the nuances of rowing together toward Heaven.
God is like the 9th man sitting at the front of the boat calling out encouragement, helping you get back on track, reminding you of the rhythm, and hollering out to you to “keep going”. He knows it’s not impossible, but when it starts to feel too hard or too much, He’s right there to remind you that it isn’t impossible.
This is not easy. Just like in the movie, sometimes one person is rowing faster than another, sometimes things get frustrating. On and on. But they keep getting back in the boat and practicing. Down to the smallest detail they have to learn how to work together, how to row together, how to understand each other. And that’s what family life is like. We have to learn how to “row” together. And when we do that, our boat starts to glide a little faster, the rhythm gets easier, we learn what works and what doesn’t work. It’s not impossible. But it is only possible if we persevere, if we work together, if we get to know each other, if we keep the goal of Heaven in mind.
Is your family rowing together?