When I was a very little girl, close to five years old, I experienced what it is like to be drowning. My parents, my Nanny and Pappaw, my brother and I were canoeing down a river in Florida together.  It was a beautiful day and we were having a great time together.  Eventually, my brother and I got into the river and took the seat cushions from one of the canoes and used them as flotation devices and we floated lazily alongside the canoes in the cool water.  It was a perfect summer day.  My brother was a strong swimmer, but I was not.  None of us were concerned about this though because we were staying close together and the water was not very deep.  The events that led up to me gasping for breath are fuzzy in my mind now some 30+ years later, but I do know that one of the canoes tipped over and my grandparents (who did not know how to swim) ended up in the water.  I know that my older brother left me alone to swim over and help them and I let go of my flotation device in the midst of the ensuing chaos.  My Dad jumped out of his canoe to go help my grandparents and in the process, his canoe tipped.  In the craziness of trying to get the canoes righted and the people back in them, I was quietly sinking below the water and bobbing back up with increasing desperation.  I couldn't understand why no one was coming to help me!  It was obvious to me that I was dying, but no one else seemed to notice.  How was that possible?!  

Since then I've learned about something that life guards call, "The Instinctive Drowning Response."  You see, as it  turns out, drowning in real life looks nothing like drowning in the movies or on TV.  Drowning people do not thrash about or yell for help.  They can't.  All of their energy is being expended on getting above the water and catching as much breath as possible before they inevitably sink back beneath the surface.  They can't wave their arms because they are instinctively using their arms to push down on the water's surface in order to leverage their bodies and get their mouths above water. With that being the case, statistics show that half of all children who die each year from drowning do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult who didn't recognize that they were drowning.

Have you ever felt that way in your day to day life?  Drowning, while no one notices?  Chances are you think it should be obvious.  You can't fathom why no one seems to see that you are living on the brink.  Survival, just making it through the day, is so consuming your thoughts and energy that you can't understand why others don't sense your desperation, despair, constant struggle.  

On that perfect day in Florida, we all got a reality check.  Starting with me.  Once the canoes were back in place and those who were obviously endangered were in the clear, my father came over to me.  In a loud voice he said, "Stand up!"  I could not respond verbally or physically.  I kept sinking below the surface frantically climbing this invisible ladder that would bring me back up just long enough to gasp for air before I went back under.  Finally he grabbed me by my shoulders lifted me slightly and said again, louder and right to my face, "Carla, Stand up!"  With my head now being held above the water by his strong arms, I could respond.  Coughing and sputtering, I extended my legs and to my unfathomable surprise the river bottom was not far below.  I had been drowning in water that only came up to chest.  At any point I could have stretched out my legs, found solid ground and caught my breath, but I didn't know that.  I had no idea that my salvation was that close, that accessible, and my family had no idea that I was in danger.  Frightening, isn't it?

This memory surfaced for me this week while I was watching online as Louie Giglio taught a lesson at the Passion 2013 conference in Atlanta.  He shared two different stories from the Bible where people were healed or brought back to life, but the final step in that restoration process involved them "standing to their feet."  That is a powerful image for me.  Stand up!  Bear your own weight!  You are not a victim, you have what you need to carry on!

If you feel like you are drowning and no one is noticing, rest assured, the Solid Rock is beneath you.  It will require you transferring some of your energy from trying to stay afloat into remembering the One who put breath in your lungs to begin with, and that transfer of thought and energy will feel like a risk - but it is one that will pay off.  In Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV) God says, "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."  You will also be required to look at those around you a bit differently.  The answer is, No.  They can't tell that you are in despair, in danger.  It isn't always as obvious as you feel like it is.  People are busy and their thought lives are complicated (they have their own canoes tipping over left and right), that doesn't mean that they wouldn't come and support you while reminding you of the solid ground beneath you if they knew you needed that help.  Find a way to reach out - this too will feel like a risk, but it is one that will eventually pay off.  It helps if you reach out to those who aren't also drowning.  Someone standing on solid ground is much better equipped to help you find your footing than someone who is frantically climbing that invisible ladder too.

If you are one of the ones standing safely on the Rock, don't wait for those around you to completely slip below the surface before you reach out to them.  In real life, people drowning emotionally and spiritually don't look like they are drowning either.  They are often spending so much of their energy just trying to get through the day that they don't ask you for help or even know where to begin to describe the peril they are in.  Just like I didn't, couldn't respond to my Dad's instruction from afar to "Stand Up!" until he gripped me by the shoulders - others will need you to get closer than shouting distance in order to feel safe enough to try the suggestions you have for their relief from suffering.  And you'll need to be close enough to see that they need your help.  "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality." - Romans 12:10-13 NIV.


(P.S. - After that day, as a five year old, my parents enrolled me in swimming lessons at a local pool.  I was terrified, but at their insistence I learned to swim - a skill that serves me well to this day.  If you have found yourself emotionally or spiritually drowning at some point don't be satisfied with temporary relief - get involved in a local Bible believing church, seek biblical counseling, make an appointment with a Christian physician, build your support system and gain the tools you need so that the next time the "water feels too deep" you will have what you need to survive and persevere.)

(P.P.S. - The point of this post wasn't really about physical drowning, but since I brought it up, here is a link to help us notice the signs of someone who is in distress in the water.  It is good information for all of us to have!)

I do not normally (ever) write about particularly controversial things on my blog.  I just write about what I'm thinking about.  Sometimes it is funny, sometimes it is spiritual, sometimes it is introspective.  Well, right now I happen to be thinking about something that is controversial. It happens on occasion. I've sat here and debated whether or not to write down my thoughts, and finally decided that I should.  Not to make a point.  Not to become a lightening rod for opinions and criticism.  Just to continue doing what I've always done...write what I happen to be thinking about at any given moment.  So here goes.

Just down the road from us in Bellefonte, PA, a jury is currently deliberating and preparing to come to a verdict in the trial of former Penn State football coach,Jerry Sandusky who has been accused of many different crimes related to inappropriate sexual contact with multiple young boys over the course of several years.  This case has drawn intense national media attention. As reporters and news outlets are each trying to come up with a different angle on the case, and gain more readers in the process, articles are emerging on the periphery that have nothing to do with Jerry Sandusky or his accusers.  They are focusing, instead, on pedophilia.  Analyzing it, dissecting it, puting it out there for the world to consider and talk about.  Tonight I read one such article on CNN.com.  Here is the link: http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/21/opinion/cantor-pedophila-sandusky/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

The article asks two questions: 1. Are people born pedophiles? and 2. Do pedophiles deserve sympathy?  First, the article defines a pedophile as someone who has a sexual attraction toward children.  The author distinguishes a pedophile from a child molester by stating that not every pedophile acts on their urges and actually molests a child.  Scientific evidence is then given that points to the possibility that people can be born with a bent toward being sexually attracted toward children.  Thus, the question the author poses, "If people are born this way, should we feel sorry for them?"

I've been thinking about the greater questions that this conversation brings to the surface and I wanted to jot down my thoughts here as I process them.  I am not a theologian.  I am not a doctor.  I am not a geneticist.  I am the sum total of the thoughts, experiences, knowledge, and faith that God has blessed me with.  It is from this humble place that I offer these observations:

1. As I read the Bible, I read of a God who has created us in His image, knitting us together in our mother's womb.  I read of a God who does not make mistakes and has no regrets. 
2. This fact does not mean that our physical bodies are "perfect" in the way that we define perfection.  As simple human beings who, apart from faith, have only this world as a frame of reference and only other human beings to compare ourselves to - we define perfection as that which is most desirable to the most people.  God is not limited by this world and thus does not define perfection in that way.
3. We do not understand when someone is born blind, or deaf, or autistic, or with a physical malformation.  We see these things as disabilities, and at times we question a God who could allow someone to suffer such "imperfection," undeservedly.
4. As science continues to delve into the area of genetics and attempts to separate out that which is nature versus that which is nurture, more and more physical and psychological "imperfections" are believed to have been hardwired into people before they were born. 
5. As a person of the Christian faith, I must choose to compare myself, not to those around me, but rather to Jesus Christ alone.  The Bible tells me that none of us is perfect. Nope, not even one.  Not because of our "flawed" God-given physical bodies or psyches, but because of what we've chosen to act on, sinfully.  We do not know what proclivities were hard-wired into Jesus' physical DNA while he was on Earth.  We do know that the Bible says he was tempted in EVERY WAY but was without sin.  Every. Way.  Whatever his tendencies were, he never acted on them sinfully.  He is our gold standard, not each other, but the one who walked this Earth and was tempted but did not sin.  Jesus, when tempted, returned to scripture and prayer, and he never acted on any temptation.  We are to do the same, with His help.  These tendencies toward sin, these imperfections, can actually drive us right into the arms of the one and only Savior of the world, and that is where we have belonged all along.
6. Should we feel sorry for the pedophile?  No.  But not because he/she is repulsive and undeserving of our sympathy.  We shouldn't feel sorry for him/her for two reasons: 1. Because we are no better, and 2. Because he/she is NOT WITHOUT HOPE.  We should feel grateful that God has designed each and every one of us to need a Savior, to be faced with our flawed tendencies so that we seek out His help.  Otherwise, we would never turn to Him, and the truth is that He is the center of the universe.  Not you, and not me.  He is what life is all about and living our lives thinking and acting otherwise is foolish.
7. Who should we feel sorry for then?  I believe we should feel sorry for those who think they have it all together.  Who believe they have no need of a Savior.  Who have looked at their own flawed tendencies, whatever they may be (pride, drunkenness, lying, rage, laziness, sexual deviancy, passivity, etc.) and rather than humbly putting faith in Christ to save them from themselves, they determine to just give into their instincts and define their own morality, choosing to make themselves the center of the universe and elevating themselves to the place of god in their own minds.  He/She is to be most pitied, and prayed for.

And that's what I think about that.