Swimming is a Dangerous Sport

Several years ago, a group of us gals were on a road trip listening to a comedian. I can't recall the comedian's name, but I still quote some of the material from time to time. One of my favorite sketches started out with the lines, "Swimming is a dangerous sport. Sometimes you do it for fun and sometimes you do it to not die."

I'm not super-fond of being in the water- part of that is it takes a lot of work to get ready to get in the pool (can I get a shout-out from my fellow ladies?) but the other part is I hate water in my eyes. Despite my reservations about being in the pool, today was my third swim-therapy session for my knee and it was actually fun. It was even more thrilling to not be THAT girl who was last in every exercise we did. Everyone must have been feeling really slow today, because I was the first to finish almost everything! Can you tell I'm excited about that?

Well, the other two days were not as uplifting as today was. The first day as I crawled into the pool with my glasses on, one of the instructors looked at me with incredulity and asked, "Glasses in the pool?" I explained they were an old pair, but I am just blind without them on. He just shook his head and started teaching me the exercises for the day. I've never really swam laps in a pool with lanes or been in a pool for anything except entertainment or to cool off. Instead, I found myself huffing and puffing seemingly unmoving in the 88 degree water...definitely not entertainment or cooling off! I became easily discouraged as I looked around and saw how quickly everyone else around me was shooting down their lane. As my strength began to wane and I found the water level rapidly rising around my jaw, I decided I had to get a grip. I did not want to quit. I started coaching myself in my head, "Come on, Mel. You can do it. Just focus on your movements and not on the pain. Focus on what you are trying to accomplish." I found myself wholly focused on one point at the end of the pool and then repeating the movements over and over until I got there. I began to smile as I neared the end, partially because I was almost finished and hopefully that meant the pain would stop, but the other part was because I couldn't help but think, "There must be a spiritual analogy in all of this." :) 

Hebrews 12:2 says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith..."We can't be focused on all the things going on around us, our own pain, or even things in our own "lane". If we are constantly looking around or comparing our progress to others'- we WILL become discouraged. So, if you find yourself discouraged, in pain or distracted by all the things going on around you: Fear not! Be encouraged and FIX your eyes on HIM!