Drowning

Well, it’s been a very hectic week.  Just when we thought we might actually have some quiet time, my mother-in-law fell on Halloween night and broke her arm.  We spent all night in the ER, only to have them give us some pain pills, a splint, and send us home.  Now, mom is 80-something.  We brought her down to our area 2 years ago and put her in an assisted living facility so we could better help her during times just like this.  And that’s what we’ve spent the last week doing, my wife and I trading off day and night shift, taking mom to the bathroom, helping her stand up, transporting her to meals and to the doctor, etc.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I love my mother-in-law, and not just because I love my wife.  And I believe that what I am doing is blessed by God.  I believe it gives my mother-in-law a chance to see God’s grace and love. 

And I believe it gives me the same chance.  Because it’s been a very hectic week.  I spent much of last night (in-between trips with mom to the bathroom) praying.  I started out lamenting the fact that all I had hoped for was a little peace, and feeling put upon by God that I wasn’t getting that.  The image I put forward to God in my prayers was that I was drowning.  God answered back…..  In my (very) early days, I was a lifeguard.  During lifeguard training, they teach you how to deal with people who are drowning.  Drowning people usually are pretty darn active.  They’re thrashing in the water.  They’re trying (literally) to grab you and stand on you to stay afloat.  This generally doesn’t help the life-saving process.  So they teach us how to keep the person still and quiet.  They teach us how to subdue the person thrashing around.  When we begin carrying them to shore, if they thrash, we roll them underwater to get them to calm down again.  In other words, we want them to be still.

My thought to God’s reply was “Wow, God, really?”  And he answered back…..also during that training they teach you that if you are alone in the water, you will quickly get tired and drown if you try to swim like you normally would.  Instead, they teach you the “dead man’s float”.  It involves….being still.  Using as little energy as possible, you can stay afloat – and even travel long distances – in the water over a long period of time.

So I finally accepted the fact that, in the midst of “drowning” in life’s circumstances (whatever it is that the world is throwing at me at the time), I need to be still.  It is then that God can approach me in the water, rescue me, and carry me to safety.  He is right beside me the whole time, if I quit thrashing around long enough to realize it.  It also occurred to me that, like most training, once you have mastered something at a simple level, you learn to do it at a more complex level.  It is easy to be still in the shallow end.  But then you move on to the deep end of the pool and master the disciplines there.

God bless,

John