Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Weather: To withstand, or to wear away (12/04/25)
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TITLE: Going Through It | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
12/09/25 -
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The sea erupted, and the wind shifted against us. It took a breath and exhaled forcefully. The breeze bit icy into our cheeks, snapping the sail, rolling the waves, rendering our oars useless. Whitecaps snapped like teeth, gnawing at our boat.
“Harder,” I yelled. “We’ll beat it across.”
They trusted me. I felt the weight. The sky was lying to me, darkening too fast, clouds scrambling over each other like ravenous dragons intent on their prey. We pressed on. He’d told us to ‘go ahead of Me,’ and when the commander commands, you go, even into the sharpened teeth of the devourer.
The steady rhythm of oars slicing through water floundered. Galilee was groaning. A gust slammed us from the east, spinning us sideways. A liquid monster grabbed at my torso, pulling me toward the deep. Stinging cold threatened to tear the oar out of my hands. I gripped harder.
“Simon-“John shouted. He was as experienced as I, and his voice betrayed him. He doubted whether we could weather this weather.
“I know!” I yelled. Even though I didn’t.
The successive waves rammed us like charging bulls. Andrew choked on the sea, drenching him. Half of us bailed, half of us rowed. We were losing. The boat felt heavier, sluggish, with no will to fight.
Fear raked across my ribs like the claws of the dragon. I’d known storms, challenged them, even mocked them. This was different. Angry. Intentional. Demonic.
“Harder!” I yelled. The wind snatched the words from my lungs and spit them into the darkness.
Muscles burned. Gasps increased. The wind and waves became a shroud, suffocating us, squeezing the life out of our souls—the moaning, groaning; terror pressed down. The lake mastered the proud and the confident, spewing us like empty shells.
Flashes. White, jagged, merciless, pitchforks of doom hurled themselves at us from above. Masks of terror surrounded me. Thunderous cracks rattled us from around as the roar of water slammed us from below.
“We’re not going to make it!” Thomas shouted.
“For a heartbeat, I believed him. I tasted the truth-bitter as death.”
My skills, experience, strength, and knowledge-pointless and useless. The sea didn’t care who I was, who it devoured. I was less than a child.
“Lord…where are You?” I whispered into the wind.
Another lightning flash. And John pointed. “What was that?”
I turned. At the next flash, the storm tricked my eyes, shaping shadows into something human. The shape moved, steady, deliberate, taking on a translucence without assistance from the lightning. The hair on my arms prickled.
“A ghost!” someone yelled.
“No…it’s Him!” I said.
No ghost, no demon, no spectre strolls through darkness with such purpose. Hushing the wild things like tame creatures below his soles. Wailing wind and thrashing sea bowed.
“Take courage!” His voice rolled across the distance like a father’s hand reaching out for his toddler. “It’s me, don’t be afraid.”
The fear, pride, despair, and helplessness broke inside me. If He was here, nothing else mattered. A longing surged over me, deep, fierce, daring, pulling me past the chaos to where he stood.
“Lord,” I shouted into the wind, “if it’s really You, command me to come to You on the water!”
He didn’t hesitate. “Come!”
The sea roared, the waves threatened to swallow me whole. The boat lurched under me as the others shouted my name. I could see only one face.
I stood and swung one leg over the side, then the other, sitting on the frame. I held a rope in a death grip. My foot touched the water. It held. Still shifting and alive, but somehow firm. An ancient voice penetrated through my thoughts. “Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid. I am with you.”
I stepped away from my shifting fortress, toward the one who made wind and waves. I released the rope. The spray still kissed my face; the wind still clawed at my tunic. But the impossible happened. For a moment, the storm felt small. A dragon was repulsed back into its cave.
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