In 2016 we boarded Volare to sail from Puerto Rico to St. Croix for the holidays. At the marina we met a family with young kids who had been sailing for a couple months, learning as they went, just as we had done a few years earlier. Six months later, I got word from them stating how that day was their roughest one at sea yet, with “winds up to 22 knots and waves 6-8 feet.” Their roughest day? That very summer we had tangled with two squalls whose winds were up to 40 knots! Rarely have we not had some sort of turmoil at sea.
Then I read in Jeremiah that it is the Lord “who stirs up the sea.” I recalled Ephesians 4:4, 7: “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called… But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”
We cannot compare ourselves and our circumstances with others and their situations. God in His infinite wisdom gives each a measure of grace so that when the storm passes, our almighty Savior—not us in our feeble attempts— receives the glory.