Two Men and a Swimming Pool

I’ve watched two men struggle to keep afloat.

My little man, Cade, is barely a whole handful of years.  Last week, we logged countless pool hours during our vacation to Pattaya in Southern Thailand.  And Cade was determined to swim.  In the deep end.  He desperately wanted the freedom to be a contender in the cannon-ball contests and chafed at the thought of his older sister doing something that he couldn’t.

And so I watched him from water’s edge.  I watched him struggle and spit chlorine.  I watched his arms push water and his feet kick-desperate.

And I didn’t help him.

I knew he could make that reach for the cement ledge of safety.  And I also knew that one day, he might need to tread water for a period of time, might need to make it to the side by himself, might need to hold his own in the pool.  If he falls off a boat.  Or if he dives in when no one’s watching.  Or if he challenges his sister to a race across the deep end. The boy has to learn to swim.

And I reckon the only way to make him a stronger swimmer, is to choose to watch the struggle.  But I don’t have to like it.  And I didn’t.

I married a leader– an inspirational one at that. My husband is the kind of man you want to follow into battle.  He’s a visionary, a William Wallace, an Aragorn.  Ask any youth who has sat under his teaching or any college kid he’s mentored–or just ask me. He has a gift of passionate leadership unlike any I have ever seen.

But for the past five months, I’ve watched him struggle in the water. I’ve watched him choke on hard decisions, and I’ve seen his confidence go the way of the dive stick down below.  As a relational, authentic man, he has been silenced with language and isolated by culture.  And I’ve seen him gasp for air and kick-desperate.

And I can’t do much to help; I don’t have the strength to lift this man out of the water.  But I know the Father does.

And, yet, he doesn’t seem to be offering much right now, either.

But then I remember my own controlled-resistance in the pool last week with Cade, and I am driven towards a deeper faith as I stand in this water.  I have to believe the struggle is only continuing because the bird’s eye view of the Story involves a pivotal scene where it’s vital that my husband be able to tread water for longer, that he be strong enough to cross an ocean, or that he keep all of our heads above water in a raging river.

And maybe that’s why this man I’d follow around the world and back again is being allowed to struggle.  So. Much.

And I get it.  I do. The struggle makes for stronger swimmers.

But, I still don’t have to like it.

“Every circumstance that God gives us, every person that he puts into our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future only He can see.” -Corrie Ten Boom

Who is struggling in the water right now in your life–yourself or someone you love?

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