I cried unto the Lord in prayer. Cried with all of the energy that was in me. “I want you to teach me to swim.” I said. “Please help me to enter the water.”
Ending my prayer, I followed a prompting to turn on the television. I opened Youtube and–clicking the first video I saw on the home screen–I was transformed.
“You have to be willing to inconvenience yourself.”
These words spoken by motivational speaker Lisa Nichols pierced me and–sobbing–I knew what I had to do.
Fear had stopped me from signing up for the writer’s conference and with it being just one day away, I had convinced myself that maybe this just wasn’t my year.
But now, with my palms opened to the Lord, He showed me that though He is willing to give me all that He has, I must first be willing to step out into the water to meet Him.
I needed to be willing to take the leap. The leap into the writer’s conference. I pulled up the registration form onto my computer then–before I could even enter my name–I walked away. Terrified.
The problem is that I have panic attacks.
Panic attacks that are filled with the same irrational, primal fear that sends wildlife running head on into the headlights when they are normally keen for survival.
If you were to ask me today, my feelings on where I’ll go when I die I would answer, “To be with my Lord, my family and friends in the most peaceful place imaginable where I will feel more love than I have ever known.”
If you asked me the same question during a panic attack it would go something like this, “Listen! I’m about to disappear into a dark abyss of nothingness! I need you to promise me that you’ll do everything in your power to bring me back! Promise to get me out of the staticky TV! Please! Get me out of the staticky TV!”
Because panic attacks strike whenever they want, wherever they want, for whatever reason they want, the three hour drive to the conference–with its middle of nowhere stretches, sporadic cell phone coverage and no one around to get me out of the staticky TV–seemed like an impossible price to pay.
Unable to muster the strength to commit to the conference on my own, my husband gave me a blessing wherein the Lord revealed His promises to me– promises about my writing–once again. He revealed the importance of the conference, what I would learn there and what it would mean to my life. In short He invited me to take the leap. He invited me to swim.
So powerful were His promises that they left my husband to say, “Well, now you have to go.” at blessings end.
I flopped back on my bed and, staring at the ceiling I said, “Except I really don’t. We never have to do anything. He invites but we always have the power to say no.”
Taking that part of me–that screaming, flailing, fighting part of me–that still wanted to say no, I went before the Lord in humble prayer and again asked for His help. “Please lend me your peace, lend me your courage until I can gain my own.” I cried.
Then with borrowed strength I dove deep into the water and I swam. I swam toward healing. I swam toward courage. And I swam toward killer answers to every plot question in my novel that has plagued me since the beginning of time. Seriously. Every one.
I love to swim. I mean, I really love it.