Whitney Williams - Floundering in the pool of life

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, June 22nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Some things in life are too serious to take lightly. Like learning to swim. Here’s commentator Whitney Williams.

AUDIO: [Kid crying]

WHITNEY WILLIAMS, COMMENTATOR: Ms. Margaret doesn’t take any lip. She’s serious about teaching kids to swim.

Tears from a 2-year-old don’t faze her. “Dry it up!’ she says as she pulls tiny girls into the water. Screaming fits on the side of the pool? “You! Zip it!” she tells the kid sternly with a pointed finger. Vomit? “There’s a hose over there at the side of my yard—Just hose him off, mom, and then get him back over here to the pool.”

AUDIO: Face in the water. Face in the water. Go!

After a few minutes of lessons, she allows the kids to fall beneath the water right beside the wall. “Reach up!!! Reach up!” she yells, urging them to take hold of the wall and pull themselves out. She praises them when they do and rescues and warns them when they don’t.

Some parents may think Ms. Margaret’s method is a bit too harsh. But after one of my sons nearly drowned under my watch last summer, I decided we were done playing around when it came to swimming lessons.

The situation still haunts me. Honestly, I feel ashamed to even talk about it. My son Jake was 3 at the time, as was his twin brother, Luke. The twins and I, along with my oldest son, Colt, were at a neighborhood pool with some church friends. It was bustling with activity. My three kids begged to take off their life jackets to eat lunch more comfortably. I reluctantly agreed, and laid out a towel behind me for them to sit on. I handed out three lunches and three drinks, carefully packed; then I went back to chatting with friends. A few minutes later I heard Jake crying. I looked up and he was standing at the side of the pool. Dripping wet, terrified eyes, no life jacket. His hair was wet, so I knew he had gone under. Oh, so he saved himself, you might think—that’s great. But, no. No, he did not. He had walked past me, down the stairs, into the pool, and sunk ... silently, helpless, with his mom, his God-given protector, oblivious just 7 feet away. I almost lost my child that day, were it not for a stranger standing by the stairs who rescued him ... were it not for the grace of God. I signed my boys up for swimming lessons with Ms. Margaret the very next day.

Ms. Margaret knows she scares a lot of the children in her class. But she doesn’t let that dissuade her. Her mission is not to show kids a good time or to teach them how to blow bubbles under the water. Her only goal is to protect them from drowning. Her discipline comes from love.

AUDIO: [Sound of swimming ]

Swim lessons at Ms. Margaret’s remind me a lot of our relationship with God. How often we flounder in the pool of life, thinking His rules and rebukes harsh and unfair, fighting His life-saving instructions, the very instructions meant to keep us from drowning.

AUDIO: I did it!

I’m Whitney Williams.

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