Drowning

Some days, I feel like I'm drowning. Lungs squeezed, panic set in, can't see the shore, drowning. Some days, treading water is simply too hard. Too exhausting. Some days, I reject the Life Savior and want to sink, to feel the water slipping over my head. To flounder in distress. To slap the waves and feel the ocean spray and salty sea touch my tongue. Some days drowning seems easier than swimming. Giving up. Relaxing. It's tempting. Some days.

Some days I don't want to hear The Voice of Truth. Don't want to hear that I'm blessed beyond measure. To Count my Blessings and Name them One by One. Don't want to be the Sunday School Teacher. THE Example.

Instead, some days, I count unfairness. Name them One by One. Post-Postpartum Depression. Days of Darkness and Fear. DIVORCE. Brain TUMORS. FIBULAR HEMIMELIA. Financial Bondage. Essays to Grade, Essays to Grade, Essays to GRADE.

I swim in this sea instead and cling to floating debris. Pieces of arguments. Words of DISCOURAGEMENT. Surgery number 3. No more babies can be birthed. Type A personality. Fear, always fear.

And I wonder, did HE do this. Did He sit in this sea. And I remember that HIS tears were as drops of blood and HE knows this water. Knows the taste of this OCEAN of DESPAIR. Yet, HE broke the BREAD and gave THANKS and got UP from the GARDEN and OPENED the palm for the N A I L S.

So, I follow. RELUCTANTLY. But HE is so COMPELLING.

And I go to the GARDEN and fall on the KNEE and RISE to accept the PLAN. AND feel the pain of guilt, the failure to look, the failure to float, to TRUST, to GIVE THANKS in A L L T H I N G S. The failure to see me HIDDEN in Him. To ACKNOWLEDGE that all things come THROUGH HIM first before they REACH me. And in the THROUGH HIM--
a l l t h i n g s become BLESSED AND GOOD. And bring HIM GLORY.

And the SEA begins to form anew. And the ashes BECOME beauty.