It's All From "About Me!: A Soul Surfer's Guide to Happiness Through the Mastery of Self" by Tim McAuley

I had been struggling with my conceptualization of God and making sense of the world.  My friend Chris Cram decided to teach me the real meaning of a "Power Greater than the Self" by taking me surfing......I nearly drowned, but his point was understood:

They each took turns explaining just what to do in order to not get killed when attempting to drop in on those waves. Then they each took turns demonstrating.  As Cram followed the procession of surfers off the point at

Trestles he said to me, “Take the next wave, so I can be in position just in case something goes wrong.”

I guess I really should have taken that as a cue not to take the next wave.  But I didn’t.  

I paddled myself into position at the peak of the wave, trying my best to point the nose of the board at an angle.  I popped up just like I was instructed.  I remember thinking something about how much steeper this wave was than the wave I used to attempt to surf just a mile or two down the coast nicknamed San O.

I think I was still contemplating that angle and power of the wave as my face planted into the bottom of it.  I can’t really recall what I was thinking when that ton of water landed on my body and pushed me down beneath the murky, salty surface of the breaker zone at Lower Trestles.