Learning to Swim

I woke up this morning and prayed: Dear Lord,Thank you for goggles. Amen.I would have never dreamed that at thirty-six I would be learning to swim. It is a secret of mine that I started to tell people and they have been laughing, so I am just going to turn it back in and keep it between God and me. I have always hated swimming. Even when it is hot and the only way to stand the outdoor scorching summer sun is to swim, even then, I would typically just rather not. I don't really care for air conditioning either – but if I get into that I will sound like a complainer, so I will stop right there with hating to swim.I've been thinking back at being seven, since my girls are now. And this is what I remember of my summers: never being able to see. And I realized it wasn't so much the swimming that I hated, it was what happens when I swim. At about seven years old I suddenly needed glasses. It is weird to me to think that one day I came home with glasses because I swear they were instantly coke bottle thick and needed for everything. I never had the glasses just for reading or the light pair that a child would even need a glasses case to carry. Since first on my nose, I never remember being able to see without them. And so, here is the answer to my distaste for the pool: water and glasses don't mix. The glasses get set on a pool side table or on a towel edge, and from that point on as a child, I dreaded the time in the pool. My list of worries:1.What if someone steps on my glasses and breaks them? There is no safe place near a pool edge.2.Where are my friends? At a public pool I could literally not tell the difference between the grandma floating and my friend's raft. Marco Polo was the only game I could handle because it didn't matter if I tried to peak – I still couldn't see.3.Where are the cute boys? As I grew up, that became the only reason to really go to the pool anyway and I couldn't even get a good flirt in! No googly eyes? What was the point of my cute bikini?!4.What if I can't find my towel when I get out of the pool? What if I walk over to the wrong group of friends?5.The glasses fog up at an indoor pool. I hate that.Okay, you get the picture. It is quite simply, miserable. So as I grew up, I had an aversion to swimming. If you are as blind as me – which is, can't-see-the-alarm-clock-blind – then you understand my distress. So I did the lessons, and I managed the pool parties as best I could, but I grew up hating swimming.In high school, I got contacts. You might think this event would change my abhorrencee for water sports, but au contraire. I remember going to swim for the first time with my “new eyes” and being so excited inside-ready to enjoy the pool with the invention of vision! On the edge it was immensely better. I no longer worried about having my glasses broken and I was free to scope out the boys. I could even wear sun glasses! Glory be! But jumping in, my fears and frustrations returned. Any sort of splash or attempt to swim stung my eyes and made me feel like my contacts were going to fall into the pool. So, now I could handle the shore and even wade a bit, but the real fun and adventure splashing out in front of me still did not seem inviting. I resigned to be a dog paddler, keeping my head up and looking nonsporty. Fast forward twenty years. Here I am today, watching my daughters learn to swim. And they have goggles. I chuckle every time they put them on – their little bug eyes popping out. But they dive down deep and they enjoy the water like mermaids. And I sit on the edge, with my contacts in, and watch them splash and play for hours. I get to thinking: Goggles. Me. The thought cracks me up because I can just imagine my eyes popping out of my head like theirs. Then I realize, Hey, why not? I am already horrified to be wearing this swimming suit. My days of impressing the boys are long gone. So I grab an extra pair of goggles, and I jump in. Low and behold, I can see the bottom of the pool! I can see my daughters as they play and I can splash back! I do a lap across the pool and apply every thing I have heard their swim instructors tell them – and what do you know? I can swim! I never sunk before, like I said I was a great dog paddler. I once even treaded water for 20 minutes in a bet with my dad which was supposed to get me a horse in the end (never did). But swimming! Now this was new to me. It felt amazing to glide through the water and to turn my head and breath. I did the "Bubble Bubble Bubble Breathe" stroke in my head and the freestyle was exactly that – freeing!I climbed out of the pool like I had discovered a secret. Now, I know it's too late to be a Missy Franklin – but I just may try a triathlon someday. I just have to laugh because, like I said, I never thought I would be learning to swim at thirty-six. And it gets my thinking...what else did I hate as a child? What did I hold myself back from for some silly reason? I suddenly am realizing that my list of things I want to do with my life can be bigger and bigger. It is like I have just heard a graduation speech with inspiration and a “Go forth!” message. Maybe skiing, mountain biking, orienteering, even water slides! My mind is reeling at the possibilities. For the first time in a long time, I feel like trying new things instead of perfecting the old. And I realize, I am starting to like being old because now I can wear goggles and just jump in without a worry in the world about what that Barbie on the beach towel is thinking of me. And I am thankful. Thankful for goggles and thankful for growing old. Amen.

Momentary Afflictions

For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. 2 Corinthians 4:17 This perspective can be hard to swallow. Even harder to explain to a child. Last night I shared with Katie and Lexie the story of Abraham and Isaac. Lexie stopped me twice to ask, so he was going to die? So he was going to be burnt up? Katie could answer yep and get on to the rest of the story. I wonder if she has the faith of the child or if she was simply caught up in hearing the end of the Bible truth. Either way, Katie was moving forward and ready to hear how God stepped in and saved them. Lexie, though, she was bothered – as am I still- that this father would play chance with his son's life . Bothered that God would ask it. Now in my adult brain I have reasoned and figured that God was teaching people his love. The request by God of Abraham always had an out, it was never a last minute salvation. For He created time and knows all things, so he knew the last breath would be years in coming. What he needed was for Abraham to walk step by step, no matter how dangerous or how heartbreaking the steps would be. Abraham believed and showed his belief with actions, with obedience. In the end, he learned that God would never forsake him and so faith is not explained but established. This lesson was so hard for Lexie, though. I watched her little brain work and I saw her unable to get to the end of the lesson because she was caught up in fear. In this moment I learned several things. 1. I am not the best Bible storyteller. I became immediately thankful for Pastor Michael and for crazy Aaron who works with the youth. My answers to her questions were muddy and I left her wrestling with God's goodness instead of awed by his grace. 2. Fear is a hang up in my life too. It was fear that kept Lexie from seeing the end. She missed out on the beauty of the story and the sacrificial allusion to Christ because she was so worried about the fire and the knife that Abraham was toting. I need to trust more and go step by step obediently, even if it looks dangerous or uncomfortable. And 3. Jumping to the end means missing the lesson just as much as stopping half way. Katie, maybe not scarred with the vision of a father burning a son, missed out on something too. She didn't recognize the weight of the glory because she shrugged off the affliction. In true twin fashion, my girls pulled from different ends of the story. The appropriate balance is hard to find in life. Maybe the tug in one direction, though, is the lesson that God is working on in me at the time. I often get hung up on the idea that I am too much this and not enough that – but perhaps God is teaching me in those times. He is weighing down and isolating the spiritual muscle that needs growth. This is freeing for me to consider. Part of being obedient is to follow God's daily workout plan and to accept the strain is to be gifted with the result. This morning I thank God for momentary afflictions. I thank Him for the workouts so I can be part of His glory.

God Listens

Jeremiah 29:12 Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen.

I love knowing that God listens to me. One of the most comforting and humbling parts of my faith lies in the knowledge that the creator of the world also decided to create me. To know that He cares and hears my thoughts shakes me when I really pause to consider it. Because, if he cares enough for me that he will move mountains and calm storms and heal in response to our conversations, and I multiply that by roughly 3.2 billion other living voices, you must be awestruck that he can not only keep our prayers straight, but that he has plans to prosper us as well. 3.2 billion is a lot to keep under control. I have a hard enough time with my own two children and their big ideas and needs. Thirty in a classroom is often beyond what I can handle as a teacher. But God, he has billions to love, nurture, discipline, and save.

When I was little I remember being confused about how the police use 911. I think I pictured the Mayberry police station – with Fife and the few other workers employed there- and I imagined their phone ringing whenever a kitten got up a tree or a burglar broke into a home. I would wonder what would happen if someone called 911 and there weren't any people there to respond. What if the police man was already helping someone and then someone else needed help? As a kid, I worried about stuff like that all the time. Because at some point, we just have to run out of helpers, right? It isn't mathematically possible to guarantee that a 911 phone call will be answered immediately. If there are enough simultaneous calls, then someone has to wait. Not with God, though. It is part of God's awesomeness that I can't even begin to comprehend how he does it, but somehow he keeps it all straight and offers such undivided attention that I feel like I must be the only one out here talking to him, because I can feel all his attention is on loving me. And yet, others feel this too.

I love the scene in movies when producers want to show a global image by starting with a picture of a house and then zooming out to show the street, the neighborhood, still zooming out – the city, the state, the country, the hemisphere, the globe, and then finally space. It reveals humanity as such a small portion of the world and creates an insignificance. Sometimes along with the zoom out there will be an audio clip of one conversation piled on top of another and another and another until there is a loud buzz of multiple languages, all indecipherable amongst the chaotic noise. In the end, the God's eye view of the buzzing marble makes the viewer feel small and insignificant. I like to be reminded of this – I think it is healthy. But I also think it is all wrong, because if God was truly that distant, then it suggests that he is not truly listening or a part of our plans at all. But He is not a hands off God who flicked the marble into space and let it fall and then sat down on a heavenly curb to watch. We aren't his wind up toys either. I have found in my life that God is ever present and hovering in a way that is more like a sticky, humid air all around than a distant Hubble-like viewer of earth. Humidity can be uncomfortable too, I know. I meant for my analogy to show that having God with you all the time and accepting this image can sometimes be uncomfortable. But I decided long ago I would rather have Him with me always than have to phone in a sudden 911 and worry about getting patched through, past 3.2 billion others needing miracles. Hearing all our prayers, I think, would get annoying. But God doesn't ever ask us for silence. He says to pray continually – like he wants more and more voices to address him. I love this about my God.

This week, though, he showed me that he is always listening, not just to my prayers. I was talking to my husband after reading in Genesis about the tower of Babel. I told him, “One thing I will never understand about God is why he wanted to destroy the tower.” He asked me what I meant and I continued to explain my confusion – about why God would feel threatened by a measly little pyramid. My husband shrugged and we agreed that if God was angered enough to destroy, scatter, and confuse the people for that little tower, then it seemed odd that today we have so many towers that are standing which he hasn't destroyed. Then, Sunday morning my pastor took the podium and jumped right into a sermon on Babel and how God wasn't threatened by the tower, but the tower was a picture of their self idolatry. Perhaps he destroyed the one back then so we could see today all we do must be in gratitude of Him instead of in honor for ourselves. I looked at my husband and we nodded our heads, thankful for answers to questions. What is so amazing about this story is that it was an insignificant, minor detail. We had simply been wondering about God – not praying for insight and answers. And the next morning it was as if God said, “Oh, about that Tower...” and then he filled me in on the back story. I sat through that service feeling like we were chums or BFFs, God and me. We finish each other's thoughts and sentences. And I love that about my God. He is big, but he knows me. He is busy, but he hears me. He is powerful, and he loves me.