Sinking Confidence

 

“Let me get that for you,” I say as I open the gate to the pool’s entrance for a family of four. The mother carries both a baby of about one and a plastic ring with a seat in the middle. The father’s hands are laden with towels and a cooler while managing a very excited little boy of about five carrying a water gun as big as he is. I’m so focused on the cute baby with her large blue eyes and full head of black hair, I don’t see the obvious. That will happen later.

 
Only one highly coveted table with an umbrella remains and it’s all the way by the deep end of the pool. They quickly claim it and immediately apply sunscreen to the bouncy little boy with the water gun.
 

Thanks to Memorial Day, we enjoy a three day weekend. I’m off work, the girls are out of school, and we decide to spend a day of sun and fun at the pool.

 

“Watch me! Watch me!” exclaims Grace as she dives deftly into the deep end of the pool. She wants me to rate her dives on a scale from one-to-ten.  

 

“That’s a ten!” I declare, wiggling all ten of my fingers.

 

“What about me!” Bella squeals in mid-dive.

 

“Another ten!”

 

“They’re doing so well. Their diving really has improved since last year,” says my daughter, Tish, also known as Aunt Kiki, sitting in the lounge chair next to mine.

 
Grace and Bella are happy little fishes and I’m content relaxing, soaking up a few rays, and catching up on my reading.
 

Bella & Grace

 

Before long, the bouncy boy zooms by clutching his water gun and jumps into the shallow end of the pool. He tries to swim but his movements seem too erratic. I notice him breathing hard through his mouth. I don’t like what I’m seeing. I look to his parents; their attention is on the baby as they struggle to place her into the special floatation device.
 

I point towards the boy and yell to the parents, “Is he okay?”

 

“Oh yeah, he can swim,” the father says as he throws a quick glance in the boy’s direction before focusing his attention back to the baby.

 

My maternal antennas are sensing otherwise.

 

I notice the boy frantically flailing and breathing water in through his mouth.

 

He gurgles, “Help!” before sinking beneath the water.

 

By now I’m on my feet and running and shout to the boy’s parents, “He’s not okay!”

 

I notice from the corner of my eye the father and I dive in simultaneously. He dives in the deep end. I'm closer to the little boy and dive in the shallow end careful to skim the surface, scoop the little boy under his arms, and lift his head above the water. I'm thankful for the water's buoyancy; he's a large boy for his age. He’s also completely panicked and doesn’t realize his feet can touch the bottom.

 

“You’re gonna be okay.” I reassure.

 

By now the father reaches the little boy, takes him from my arms, lifts him to the side of the pool, and gently soothes him while patting his back. The little boy coughs up buckets of water. The father looks at me and says a sincere, “thank you.”

 

Tish drapes a towel around me as I wade out of the pool’s cool water and hands me my sunglasses that I had flung before diving in. I’m still mentally processing what just happened and not understanding the parent’s initial nonchalant attitude.

 

  

“Mom, the father only has one leg,” Tish says while pointing to the prosthetic leg lying on the side of the pool.  She says while I was tossing my sunglasses he was tossing his prosthetic leg with great speed before diving into the pool.

 

Although the father is in the water, I can clearly see one whole leg and the other leg missing from the knee down. The water seems to mysteriously support his missing leg as he stands and comforts the little boy.

 

Soon the mother walks over; the baby is finally situated in the rubber ring with the seat in the middle. She slowly enters the pool with the baby and joins her husband.

 

“Is your son okay?” I ask.

“Oh, he’s not our son, he’s our grandson and this is our granddaughter. We just returned from a weeklong vacation with them in Myrtle Beach. Our grandson, Jake, swam like a fish in the hotel’s pool in Myrtle Beach. He did just fine for an entire week.”

 

“He really can swim!” The grandfather adds. “Honestly! He swam like a fish all last week. I don’t understand what just happened!”

 



 Apparently, this pool was unfamiliar territory to little Jake. He simply lost his confidence and panicked. The grandparents had spent 7 days watching him swim effortlessly in the hotel pool. Today they assumed he was clowning around, when in reality he was on the verge of drowning.
 

It made me think of the times when my self-confidence wavered and I felt as if I was drowning in a pool of uncertainty.

 All Jake had to do was trust and let his little feet touch the pool’s bottom. Instead, he went into I’m drowning mode and allowed fear to overtake him.

 

Can you remember a time when you lost your confidence? Did you want to give up?

 

God is our safe place and our strength. He is always our help when we are in trouble. So we will not be afraid, even if the earth is shaken and the mountains fall into the center of the sea. Psalm 46:1