We Won't Drown

Quite a while ago a relative posted an article on Facebook on how drowning doesn’t look like drowning, and my mom commented about an experience I had. It got me thinking, so I wrote down my memory of the experience and now I thought I'd finally get around to sharing it.

Born seven weeks early, I was very small for my age until I was about 13 or 14. In summer swimming lessons, this was particularly discouraging. Because I was small and didn’t have much strength, I never progressed and, after years of other kids passing and me failing, I ended up being stuck in a class of 7 year olds as an 11 year old. What was even worse than the scorn of my “classmates,” however, was the fact that the college student teachers never understood why I couldn’t make it across the width of the pool. Clearly, I’m sure they thought, I wasn’t trying hard enough, and they always dismissed me when I said I was exhausted.

One day, when we were supposed to swim across the width of the pool independent of any aide, the teachers purposefully sat on the edge of the pool on the opposite end. It was a clear message: they weren’t going to enter the water to help us in any way. I managed to make it across until I was a couple of yards or so away from their side before my strength gave out. I was at a standstill, trying and failing to move, and unable to catch my breath, let alone call for help. I don’t recall how I got to the edge of the pool or who saved me. I was hardly conscious of it by that time. My mom says that a mother saved me. I do know that it most certainly wasn’t any of the teachers or the life guard.

This experience didn’t last any longer than a minute or so. I even forgot about it until I saw my mom’s comment. But I can still clearly remember the look of impatience on my teachers’ faces as I looked desperately to them and I can recall the overpowering sense of helplessness and abandonment.

I believe that summer was the last time I ever took swimming lessons.

Over the course of my M.A. program, I felt like I was drowning so much of the time. We all feel it many times in our lives. When we're struggling without air in the middle of life's visible and invisible difficulties, it can easily seem as if our Father in Heaven and our Savior are the teachers sitting on the sides of the pool, expecting us to make it across but not willing to get in and help us or even purposefully making it difficult for us to "test" us. It's hard to have faith when you feel abandoned, incapable of making it to the other side of the pool. Even now that I have finished my degree and no longer feel like I'm drowning, I have to consciously remind myself that I believe.

And I do believe.
This evening was stake conference and we sang "I Stand All Amazed" on the speaker's request for the closing hymn. I often cry during this hymn, but not nearly as much as I did today. Not one line in, I was struggling to sing around my tears. It reminded me that Jesus Christ does love me and, even when I feel I am drowning, He will help and save me if I turn to Him. We may struggle to see Him, but he is always there. He will never abandon us. He never expects us to be able to swim the whole way ourselves. He doesn't think that we just aren't trying hard enough. He doesn't wait for us at the other side. He is at our side, ready to help us when we falter, ready to carry us if our exhaustion nearly drags us under. He hears us even when we can't gasp for air, let alone know what to ask for. Even long before we're at our last ounce of strength, He helps us through our strokes and guides us in the direction we need to go, if we let Him. And our Savior will continue to do all of this and more. I believe this. And even when it is hard to remember and have faith and believe, I want to.

"I am in your midst, and I have not forsaken you." (Doctrine and Covenants 61:36)

(For similar post, comprising my thoughts on Matthew 14, see this.)