Help When You’re Underwater

My fearless, four-year-old daughter was overtired. We were on round two of pool play for the day at my dad and stepmom’s new house, and she was happily jumping from a smaller elevated pool area down into their larger pool over and over again. This time, however, she forgot that she wasn’t wearing her float and leaped into the deep end without an adult in the pool to catch her.

My stepmom was in the house fixing chicken noodle soup for dinner, and my dad had just returned home from work and changed into his swim trunks to join the girls for a few laps.

I caught my youngest’s wild, impulsive jump out of the corner of my eye and yelled out her name, prepared to reprimand her for running to the edge instead of carefully jumping this round. I panicked when I realized that she wasn’t going to pop back up to the surface because she didn’t have a float around her.

She kicked her legs, her little face rising to the surface, and my dad pulled her out before she went back under the water. She was only under for a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity as I considered jumping in fully clothed to rescue her.

Scared and traumatized, she cried for a few minutes, wrapped in a fluffy beach towel in Grandpa’s arms, and then was ready to get back into the pool. I, on the other hand, was shaken with “what-ifs” for the next 24 hours.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that we heard the splash when she entered the water, but not the near drowning that followed afterward below the surface.

We never hear the drowning, because it’s silent. If I hadn’t been watching my girls closely that afternoon, she very easily could have drowned. In fact, my six-year-old daughter was in the same pool but oblivious to the fact that her little sister had jumped in without a float until after it happened.

We usually hear the splash–the initial impact when something happens–but not the sinking after.

We hear about the death of a church friend’s loved one but not the grief that follows. We hear about the family member’s military service but not the PTSD when they return. We hear about the high school friend’s chronic illness diagnosis but not the stress that weighs down the family afterward. We hear about the neighbor’s job loss but not the anxiety about finances that haunts them until they find a new job.

Debilitating stress, anxiety, and depression operate best in a vacuum. Satan uses our innate pride, fear, and shame about our emotional burdens and mental illness to keep us far away from other people. He tempts us to believe one of two lies–either we can save ourselves or we aren’t worth saving in the first place.

Sometimes we don’t know there’s an urgent problem until it’s too late, but God often rescues us or uses us to rescue others from the depths of isolating despair in the nick of time. As David illustrates so beautifully in Psalm 3:3, God saves us from drowning:

“But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.” (ESV)

He may not completely pull us out of the struggle, but he will bring people into our lives who recognize our struggles and help us keep our heads above water because they’ve survived their own similar hardships. He often creates community and gives us a tribe when we need it most but expect it least, and he always provides purpose in our pain, even if we don’t see it right away.

He even gives us powerful tools we can use to propel ourselves towards the surface where someone can hopefully see that we need help if we’re drowning–prayer, Scripture, and his Holy Spirit to guide us.

All he asks of us in return is our growing dependence on him and our sharing of his readily accessible salvation with everyone we encounter through the outpour of our gratitude for his rescue:

“I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD.” (Psalm 40:1-3 ESV)

May we always be diligent rescuers of those who are at risk of drowning in our midst, and may God surround us with the people who will pull us out of the pool when it’s our turn to sink.

And may we kick like crazy to get to the surface.

Lauren Flake writes about her journey as a wife, mom to two little girls and Alzheimer’s daughter in her native Austin, Texas, at For the Love of Dixie. Her first book, Where Did My Sweet Grandma Go? was published in 2016. She thrives on green tea, Tex-Mex, and all things turquoise.

Photograph © Nsey Benajah, used with permission