I’ve never liked sushi. It’s probably because I was raised in a third-world country, and my mother told me to never eat raw fish. But lately my husband has found sushi the most delectable food around. Most of our rare date nights end up in a sushi place. I frantically try to find something cooked on the menu, and I can usually find something…
Well, last Friday night I had a taste of sushi that was magnificent. I was stunned. Not only did I not feel like barfing; I actually wanted another bite. This was so funny to me because I classified sushi in the same category as snails and grasshoppers (not edible).
We were at a new sushi restaurant down by the Spokane River. It had a conveyor belt that wound itself around the room like a meandering train track. And on that conveyor belt were all kinds of sushi and other Japanese foods. You just grabbed the small plates as they passed by your table. There was no need to wait or to order. At the end of the meal, the waiter counted up the different-colored plates for the final price. A cooked oyster (two sides with delicious stuff inside) was $1.50. Other plates were $4. Anyway, each of the foods we ate was delicious. My husband said, “We definitely need to come back here.”
Another great thing about the meal was that you could stop whenever you were full. You didn’t have to feel overstuffed after forcing yourself to finish a huge, heaping plate of food. If I wanted a vegetable, I waited for a vegetable plate to parade by, and I’d snatch it up. I didn’t have to get sick of just one taste during the whole meal.
After dinner, my husband and I took a stroll along the river, crossing bridges and looking at the torrential waterfall. The dam had been opened, and the water looked dangerously high. The power of the raging water as it crashed over rocks was incredible. We just stood there and took it in for a while. Then I noticed a solid rock in the middle of the torrent. The rock remained secure despite the crashing waves around it. That rock represented my husband and I.
Many years ago my husband held my hands and looked into my eyes and said, “Susan, I want you and I to be a solid rock, that no matter what life throws at us, we will not waver or fall, but that we would be a bulwark against the storms of life.” He gave as an example an older couple that we know. He said he wanted us to be like them.
As I looked at the power of the crashing waves against the rock, I realized that despite the way I felt, I was acting like that rock. I was one with my husband, and I was repeatedly surprising myself with how I would lean on God to help me endure our trial for yet one more week.
The river isn’t always this strong and damaging, though. Most of the time we’ve crossed that bridge, the water has been quite peaceful. I’m longing for the day when the waters recede and the sun comes out again to shine on the rock. The sun seems long overdue…
