By Maria Warner 
“Ahhh!”
My underwater scream garbled in my snorkel tube as the manta ray’s cavernous mouth swept a hand’s distance from my face. My fingers tightened around the surfboard until my knuckles ached. My arms trembled.
I jerked my head side to side, searching for my daughters, Mia and Megan. Recent college graduates, they had joined me on one last mother-daughter vacation before launching their adult lives. They floated easily on the vibrant Hawaiian water, relaxed, trusting.
I wanted to borrow their calm.
Earlier, our guide had explained that the LED lights built into the surfboard attracted plankton the way college kids flock to free pizza. The mantas would follow. At first, their shadows were only dots on the ocean floor. As they rose to feed, those dots widened into wings. My breath shortened. Panic surged.
I shot to the surface.
“Mom, are you okay?” Mia asked, lifting her mask.
Megan surfaced beside her. I nodded, inhaling and exhaling, though when I tried to speak, only a croak came out. They reached for my hands and pulled me into a tight circle.
“Lean on us,” Megan said with softness.
This Hawaiian excursion was my graduation gift to them. I had once been the brave one, the steady voice during storms, homework challenges, boyfriend breakups. The mother who taught deep breathing exercises and whispered, God is with us. Now here they are, steadying me.
Years ago, my snorkeling experience had included smaller creatures. A three-foot orange-and-green parrotfish with blue lips had puckered as if to kiss me. But these mantas? Their mouths seemed vast enough to swallow me whole. I thought of Jonah and the great fish, of surrender in the depths. I longed for solid ground, for my feet planted safely in the Phoenix desert.
But God had not brought me here to cling to the surface.
The gentle squeeze of my daughters’ hands slowed my breathing. “Trust, Mom,” Mia said.
Trust.
The word echoed deeper than the ocean around us.
“I’m ready,” I said. “Let’s not miss this.”
We grasped the surfboard again. Mia’s leg brushed my hip; Megan tucked in against my shoulder. With their support, my grip loosened. The mantas returned, somersaulting inches from our faces, gliding with impossible grace. They twirled like ballet dancers, enormous, yet tender.
On one slow pass, I locked eyes with a ray.
Instead of fear, I felt something else: an overwhelming sense of awe. My chest expanded with a startling awareness of love, as if the Creator of this magnificent creature was reminding me, I am here too.
Without thinking, I began to hum a hymn from my childhood, Jesus loves me, this I know. Salt touched my lips. Warm water rippled across my skin. I heard the faint popping of plankton and the steady rhythm of my own breath. Suspended between sea and sky, I felt held.
Fully immersed, I understood this was not about manta rays. This was about release.
Behind me, Mia and Megan loosened their grip. Like our air bubbles drifting upward, so were past fears. So was the version of myself who believed I had to control every outcome.
In the months before this trip, my life had shifted quickly. I had been laid off from a job I loved. My husband and I had downsized from our longtime home. An empty nest, an empty calendar, all stretched before me. I wondered if I was ready. One daughter would remain in Hawaii; the other would move across the country to Charlotte. Had I prepared them well enough? Who was I now?
Floating in the Pacific, surrounded by creatures I could not command or predict, I realized how tightly I had been holding everything—my children, my plans, my identity.
God was asking me to loosen my grip.
As another manta swooped beneath us, its wide wings brushing past, I felt my heart crack open, not with fear, but with trust. The same God who carried Jonah through the deep was carrying me. The same God who guided my daughters’ first steps would guide their adult ones.
And mine too.
In the vastness of the ocean, I was not alone. I was held.
by Shelbie Farmer 
by Jennifer Toscano 
by Traci Rhoades 
