Life’s waves don’t wait for you to be ready and pool noodles don't prepare you for those waves.
I thought I was ready for anything until a pool noodle proved me wrong. Some lessons in life arrive like a quiet whisper, nudging you softly in a better direction. Others? They arrive like a full‑force ocean wave knocking you flat, stealing your sunglasses, and leaving you crawling back to shore wondering what just happened.
This particular lesson showed up courtesy of a simple, brightly colored pool noodle.
One of my favorite things to do in Hawaii is wave jumping. There’s something exhilarating that comes from spotting the perfect wave, timing the jump, and feeling the water lift you like you’re part of the ocean for just a second.
One afternoon, while I was lounging on the beach soaking up the sun, my sister convinced me to join her in the water. She swore the waves were perfect and assured that I wouldn’t lose my favorite sunglasses. I should have known better, considering the ocean had already claimed a few pairs.
Feeling confident, I waded in. Both boogie boards were already taken, so I improvised. I slipped a pool noodle around my waist (my version of “preparation”) and headed straight in the ocean. I spotted what seemed like a manageable wave forming. I braced myself and jumped....
Big mistake.
The wave hit with full force. It knocked me off my feet, spun me around a few times and left me clawing my way back to the surface as my brother later described me a “human sandcastle.” My sunglasses were gone, my hands were scraped, and I spent the next several days getting sand out of places sand should never be.
My nieces and nephew later told us that watching Aunt Tiff get taken out by a wave was the highlight of the day.
As I sat there afterward, dripping, sandy, and slightly bruised, I had a moment of clarity: "that did not go the way I planned". I walked into the ocean totally convinced I was ready for whatever came my way. Clearly, I had misjudged both the wave and my definition of preparation.
The more I thought about it, the more it stuck with me. How often do we step into challenges believing our small, makeshift version of preparation will be enough? Sometimes our “preparation” looks an awful lot like that pool noodle: helpful to a point, but nowhere near what’s needed for the wave that’s coming.
Life has a pretty impressive way of sending waves in our direction, sudden changes, unexpected responsibilities, hard seasons. They don’t show up politely or schedule themselves into our calendars. They just appear.
The question isn’t if the waves will come.
They will.
The real question is whether we’ve built the kind of preparation that actually holds when the water gets rough.
True preparation; emotional, spiritual, practical isn’t loud or dramatic. It grows quietly through the small things: nurturing faith, strengthening relationships, learning and stretching ourselves, taking care of our minds and bodies, building routines that keep us steady when life is anything but predictable.
None of those things stop the waves from coming. Hawaii made sure I understood that.
But preparation changes how hard the wave hits and how quickly we recover afterward. Looking back, the problem that day wasn’t the wave. Waves are just part of the ocean. The problem was thinking my neon pool noodle counted as real preparation.
Life is the same way. Challenges and responsibilities will show up whether we’re ready or not. Real preparation isn’t something you grab last minute. It’s something you build long before you need it.
And when the wave finally comes, you might still get knocked around. You might still get tossed and come up with seaweed in your hair. But with real preparation beneath you, you’ll find your footing faster and you’ll walk away with more clarity than chaos and a lot less sand in your ears (and everywhere else).
XOXO
Tiffanee
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