It's Okay, I'm Swimming!

Yesterday I took the kids to our local state park.  We love this park.  If we go during the week, we usually have the place to ourselves.  There's a beach area, and picnic tables under lots of shade, piers for fishing, and the water is cool- deliciously cool, being that it's a spring-fed lake.  So, I usually meet a friend there and we let our kids bob around in the lake.  Logan and Sarah are required to wear life jackets.  If my oldest gets in the water, he has to also, but he's usually too busy scouring the shoreline for evidence of frogs or passing birds and animals.  He is a biologist at heart.

Well, we had a great time.  It was pretty uneventful for a while, if you don't count the man who drove up in a flashy black convertible and got out to reveal that he was wearing a bright orange tank top, blue plaid mini-kilt, tube socks, and hiking boots.  It went well with his clan insignia and his full, orange beard.  The phrase "somewhere in Scotland a village is missing it's..." oh, never mind.  He walked by and looked at the lake and left.

And I wish that had been the extent of our excitement.  The children were able to wade out pretty far...it stays shallow forever in that lake.  I was standing in the water keeping a close eye on them, not too concerned because they were all happy and bobbing around and having the time of their lives.  Then I saw Logan's feet pop up.  I realized that he was floating in water that was over his head and called him back to me.  He immediately got angry.  "No, I'm swimming! I'm swimming!"  And he continued to float and kick and completely ignore me.

After a few more attempts to get him to come back to me, I realized that I was going to have to go to him.  I grabbed a styrofoam "noodle" and swam over to him, grabbed onto his life jacket and towed him back to shallow water.  He was very angry. He hit and punched my arm over and over, yelling and insisting that "It's okay!" and "I'm swimming! I'm swimming!  I want to swim!"  And I said, "You only thought you were swimming.  You were in over your head."

I tell you this story because it makes me think of all of us, as children of God.  How often are we doing something we're not supposed to do, or how often have we allowed ourselves to get into a situation over our heads, and we insist that we're fine.  It's okay, I'm swimming! And we get angry at God, or at whoever is trying to help us, because we are sure we can handle what's going on in our lives, we think we are swimming. We're really just a life jacket away from drowning.

After I towed him back to shore, he did not attempt to go into deeper water again.  Perhaps when he felt his feet touch the bottom, he realized that he was finally where he was supposed to be, and while the sensation of floating weightless in the lake, his feet not finding any purchase below, must have been thrilling to him, in some way it must have been a relief when he finally touched the ground.