This week's Theme: Strong Deliverer
Day 1: The Deep End
It was the summer of rivalry. My cousin’s seven-year-old daughter was spending part of the summer with us, and between her and my ten-year-old son, I had my hands full.
Although both had plenty of other children in their immediate and extended circles, circumstances were such that each had been mostly raised as an “only child". So not surprisingly, it seemed that all my waking (and some sleeping!) hours were consumed with allaying constant fierce competition and making peace.
Various outings to the movies, the zoo, theme parks and a million other “escapes” brought no lasting peace, and I was nearing my wits’ end. So I was quite pleased and more than a little relieved when a friend suggested we join her and her two children as day-guests at a pool and campground facility where she had a membership.
The 20-minute drive was full of the usual bickering between my son and our little cousin, and by the time we arrived at the facility, they were engaged in a full-scale argument about who was the better swimmer. I listened, trying to keep my sanity; half amused by Kaye’s* feisty descriptions of her “swimming exploits.”
Somewhere in my almost-depleted processing capacity, I was aware that she couldn’t swim at all—her answers to any questions, and my knowledge of her circumstances left me convinced that she had only a hazy view of what “swimming” really meant.
However, at that moment, I was mostly interested in stopping the constant baiting and teasing, and preserving peace. I hurried them out of the car to the bench where my friend and her children sat waiting. Greetings and introductions completed, we walked towards the pool area.
My recollection of the next few minutes is shrouded in a haze of stupor, disbelief, and the dark, dank taste of fear…
We were nearing the pool when I caught a sudden flash of color. It was Kaye, in her bright swimsuit, streaking towards the full-sized adult pool. Before my disbelieving eyes, she jumped feet-first into the deep end of the pool, immediately plunging to the bottom.
I tried to cry out, but fear stuck in my throat. I ran wildly towards the pool, not sure what I would do—I couldn’t swim. “What will I tell her father?” The question rose in my mind as I saw the water close over her head, and the agonizing certainty of doom took hold of my heart and my mind.
Did I pray? I honestly do not know. But I suddenly found my voice and started screaming for the lifeguard who, oblivious, had been less than vigilant at the other end of the pool.
At some point the rest of my group arrived on the scene but I don’t know exactly when. I don’t even recall when and how I finally accounted for the whereabouts of my son. The whole episode took only seconds, but for me, it seemed a lifetime before the diminutive child was rescued, whole and sound, from the bottom of the “watery deep”.
The whole terrifying ordeal is now a distant memory, and I can now look back with mainly gratitude for Kaye's providential rescue that day. And thankfully, I was eventually able to hand her over to her father, whole and sound!
But the deep end of the pool is a danger for more than rash, overconfident children in the natural world. The spiritual parallels are enormous and frightening. And even far more consequential than rescue in the physical world, is the deliverance that God offers in the spiritual realm. The hymn-writing and music team James and Howard E. Smith capture it so well in their classic hymn, Love Lifted Me:
I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more,
But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me, now safe am I.
Jesus, our Strong Deliverer saves to the uttermost...once for all (Hebrews 7:25, 27). But while we remain in this world—completing the assignment He left us—we continue to rely on His deliverance from the perils in the "deep end" of life. And at the end of it all, He will hand us over to our Father, and His, safe and sound.
*Name has been changed
