Bathing Suit Season

Let’s just put it all out here for the whole world wide web to see: I think I have a fear of drowning.

There was this one time when I was about 7-years old tubing down the Guadalupe River with my family, and a lady and her jumbo tube came barreling through some white water rapids. She slid right under and then over me, trapping me under my own tube with no idea how to get out. I freaked out. Twenty years later, I’m still talking about it.

A year or so later, I was wading through the wave pool at Water World with my cousin Carli. With the moms and NaNa sunbathing and guarding our jellies, we were set up for big adventure. We inched deeper and deeper hoping each other’s courage would keep us afloat. Then… the waves came on.

You just bounce with them, roll with them and let them carry you. OR you swallow buckets of urine-spiked chlorine while the waves wash over your head, carrying away your scrunchie, blinding you and making every bathing suited body look the same. And somehow find yourself being pounded up against the wall of the wave pool, desperately grabbing for something steady, something to get you out of the never-ending water wall attack. Finally, a tanned lifeguard man-hand reached down and pulled me out- tears, hiccups, chlorine burps and all.

I was so afraid that nobody could see me and I would just be stuck in the overpowering waves forever (5 minutes really is forever in kid time). It just took one hand to pull me out and remind me that the wave pool is just a stimulated attraction. It’s not reality. There was solid ground to stand on. I could come out of the current whenever I wanted.

Lifa went back to his dad’s house on Monday.

My body, my heart and my everything is aching for the most perfect little boy in the whole world and all the other perfect little Lifas who don’t have their own blog or prayers of hope and justice wrapping around the world.

I feel like part of me is missing and am wondering if invisibility cloaks are one-size-fits-all or special order.

How can meetings still happen?

How can emails still get sent and newsletters written?

How can I serve one more plate of food to a child without knowing if anyone knows his birthday or if he’s ever made a wish or blown out a candle?

So I just bake cookies and set my schedule on auto-pilot.

Since Monday, I’ve been lost in the “how can I’s” and “how can you’s”. I’ve been trying to keep my head afloat in the heaving current of emotion- gasping for air but getting slapped with another wave instead, only to find an undertow of numbness that was stronger than I wanted to be.

I’m losing my breath and my perspective in the wave pool.

Waves of poverty, starvation, namelessness and brokenness aren’t going to stop coming. But I can’t stay up against this wall. I can’t keep drinking in waves of hopelessness – you know, the pee-water from the pool.

I can reach up for the sovereign God-hand reaching down to pull me out.

Again and again.

The Perfect Lifeguard, scheming with His children to rescue every bobbing swimsuit from the waves, set their feet on solid ground and serve them Mai Tai’s with little umbrellas. (Ok, I threw that last part in… just went with the bathing suit thing.)

I wish Lifa were here. The waves seem bigger when that little guy isn’t in my arms.

And he doesn’t even know how to swim.

But my real Life isn't confined to the walls of the wave pool.

And neither is his.

Neither is our family's.

With one hand holding on to our Lifeguard, we’re going to take on the waves in faith.

Together, even when we’re apart.

I won’t live in fear of the wave machine, generating man-made currents.

And trust me, the waves have really cranked up this year.

Today I’ll choose to swim in springs of life. And drink up Living Water.

Even though our bodies and bathing suits live this life in the wave pool, we don’t have to live wave-by-wave or in the “how can I’s” and “how can you’s”.

Our Lifeguard never leaves. He’s holding on. He’s bigger than every wave and never lets go.

He is for me.

He is for Lifa.

He is for you.

Photo by Jillian Hamp

He works for the good of those who love him. (Romans 8:28)