Swim Lessons and Life Lessons

Sorry it has been so long! A whole semester has gone by and I have learned much this semester about research, parenting, the Old Testament, Spanish, and more research. Finals have come and gone and we are now in Spring term, but I am currently not taking any classes. I am just working. I work custodial from 5 am to 11 am in the Administration building and the Museum of Art. I really haven't had anything to write in a long time, hence my absence from my blogging. Sorry about that. But today I started remembering a lesson that time and again has been impressed upon me.

When I first graduated high school, I became a lifeguard and a swim teacher. Here is a picture of me four years ago:

As you can see, I haven't changed much.

Teaching swim lessons could be either super fun or a total nightmare, depending on the children's attitudes that day. But I got to say, it was always such a rewarding thing after days or weeks of working with a child to watch them swim out on their own for the first time, and to see the joy on their parents' faces as they grabbed the video camera and cheered from the sidelines. I would think to myself, "Wow. I did that. I taught a child a life-saving skill. I taught that child to swim."

The majority of the time too I was assigned to teach the preschool-aged children. I had a lot of patience with them, so they always stuck me with the 4 and 5 year-old's. One of the important skills I had to teach them was how to float on their backs. We did this in a very interesting way.

The child’s head would rest on my shoulder with his/her cheek touching my cheek. Floating on their back is a very scary experience for a child, but they must learn to do so to swim. Having their cheek against my cheek is comforting to the child. I am able to whisper to them to keep them calm. Their body then rests on my hands. Like this:

I would wait for the child to relax. As the child relaxed and filled their lungs with air and stared up at the sky, they would become more buoyant. However, a child cannot learn to float if they forever remain in this position, resting on my hands. Eventually, I must lower my hands. But we were to never remove our hands. Just lower them. That way if the child began to sink, they would just land on my hands. That way they could never drown. And while my hands may have lowered, their head remains on my shoulder, touching my cheek. They don’t float completely on their own until they are older.

Without fail, every time I did this for the first time with a child, they became scared and started kicking their feet and flashing their arms. That or their arms would come up and lock around my neck. As they started thrashing, they would immediately start to sink. Where they would just land on my hands. It would take a couple lessons. But eventually they would learn that if they remained calm, they would float, and they would learn that they could trust me, that I would never let them drown. They also needed to keep looking upwards towards the sky. They couldn't see what was below them, and that was scary, and so sometimes they would take their eyes off the sky to try to see what was below them, but then their spine would curve and they would start to sink.

It is all the same with us and God. At first God has us resting on his hands. It is scary not seeing what is before us, but we eventually learn to feel his spirit (the hands) and we become calm. But God cannot teach us to float this way. He must lower his hands. Without the comforting touch of his hands that we are used to, we often become scared and may begin to freak out. We must remain calm though in order to float. But if we do start to sink, God’s hands are waiting under the water to catch us. God will never let us drown. And all the while we must continue to look to the Heavens and pray and listen to that whisper to keep us calm so we can remain floating.

Celeste