God in the waterPart 2 — In God’s Hands I turned on my back and floated and said, ‘I’m going to put myself in God’s hands.’” Hours later, the water calmed. Caught between darkness and shore, Marino decided to fight. He swam toward shore — but quickly discovered he wasn’t getting anywhere but exhausted. Coupled with the loss of his son, he said it was hard not to panic. “I started to really doubt (God) existed,” Marino said. “I said, ‘Enough of this hope–for–God nonsense,’ and I swam and swam. I felt myself getting really exhausted, and then I knew I couldn’t do it alone. ... I turned on my back and floated and said, ‘I’m going to put myself in God’s hands.’” But God’s hands seemed to be taking him the wrong way: farther out to sea. It was a long time before high tide, and floating, not fighting against the current, “was against what every fiber of my body was saying,” he said. “Where God was sending me was counterintuitive: into the dark abyss. I thought he was taking me and there were times that that scared me. I thought about my life and what I would have done differently.” He began to float with the tide, recalling a visit his family took to the Ponce Inlet lighthouse a few weeks earlier, and how he’d read that Cuban refugee boats lost at sea eventually washed up on shore. How everything, he read, washed up on shore. He thought about his daughter, Angela, who was starting a ballroom–dancing club in her new high school. He pictured her dancing and made a new resolution. “I thought, ‘She’s going to lose her father and brother on the same day. Not this day. Not on my watch,’” he said. He watched the shooting stars — the very first he’d ever seen. “It’s a very mental exercise not to panic,” said Marino, who still has red, purpled jellyfish bites on his legs and arms. “That’s what saved me,” he said. “God keeping me calm and helping me think things through.” And God, Marino said, wasn’t done with him that evening. Finally, faint purples and blues grabbed at the horizon. He could finally see the buildings around Ponce Inlet, tiny squares 12 miles away. The sun blazed on his shoulders. He could hear birds, and the small fins of jumping fish brushed against his back as they burst into the air around him. PREVIOUS | NEXT: MARY AT THE RESCUE
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