![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/20170918_161244-e1505785035157-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Lord beckons me to come into the water, “I want to teach you to swim.”\u00a0 He says.<\/p>\n
I remember the terror of swimming lessons as a young girl. I remember hiding in my bedroom closet hoping that, exasperated, my mom would be forced to take my siblings to their lessons, leaving me behind.<\/p>\n
It never worked.<\/p>\n
I also remember my dad teaching me to swim.\u00a0 I remember my resistance and the rigidity of my body as I desperately clung to his.<\/p>\n
Desperation, resistance, fear and rigidity.\u00a0 These are what my Lord invites me to leave at the shore.\u00a0 “I want to teach you to swim.” He calls.<\/p>\n
I return to the backyard swimming sessions spent with my father.\u00a0 Go back to the moment when I softened in his arms, surrendered to the water and lost myself in its weightless embrace.<\/p>\n
I learned to swim.<\/p>\n
Had I chosen to give into my fears and run away from the water my life would have been okay. It really would have.\u00a0 My dad’s love for me and mine for him would have remained the same.\u00a0 And unaware of the joys of swimming, I’d never know what I was missing.<\/p>\n
And so it is with my Lord’s invitation.\u00a0 If I refuse to soften, refuse to surrender, refuse His call to come into the water, His love for me will remain unchanged.\u00a0 And I, cocooned inside of my bubble-wrap of certainty will never know what I am missing.\u00a0 My life will be okay.\u00a0 It really will.<\/p>\n
But the thing is, I love to swim.\u00a0 I really love it.<\/p>\n
And I can’t help but wonder if maybe–just maybe–untold joys and unfathomable opportunities await me if I’ll but walk with my Lord into the water, softening in His arms, as He teaches me to swim.<\/p>\n
As He teaches me to fly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Lord beckons me to come into the water, “I want to teach you to swim.”\u00a0 He says. I remember the terror of swimming lessons as a young girl. I remember hiding in my bedroom closet hoping that, exasperated, my mom would be forced to take my siblings to their lessons, leaving me behind. It … Continue reading “If mermaids are real, imagine what else there might be…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}