If we saw it on the news, then it could happen to us. Therefore, we learned to be very careful. Well, at least, that’s what my parents told me I needed to be. Because if you’re careful, then you’re safe, right?

Bad things only happen to careless people, or so I thought. 

If you sit and watch the news long enough, you will see the terror that lurks outside your door, almost as if any step outside the house could be a matter of life or death. Living is a risk. But, not living doesn’t remove the inevitable. So, the choices are: live a careful life, or be careful while living. 

When leaving the house, I knew that the further I traveled from home, the more careful I should be lest I perish. The only really safe places were church and the police station, except that I loved visiting one and never hoped to find refuge in the other. 

One day the news reported that a child had drowned at a local pool. And, that was it; we were to be careful swimming lest we perish. Except this time, it was a legitimate threat that hit closer to home because a few years earlier my sister drowned at an out-of-state school event and had to be resuscitated and hospitalized. How was I ever going to be allowed to swim again? 

After my sister’s incident and seeing news stories of drownings, I’m sure my parents would prefer we never swim again. We didn’t own a pool, so swimming was rare anyway. If I was swimming, it meant I was at a special party or youth trip, and that meant I was having the time of my life with friends in the shallow end of a pool or beach. Swimming was a luxury, a special treat, even though it was a little scary. 

My parents grew up surrounded by water with the overwhelming beauty and mystery of the ocean. Hopping around in the ocean with the water no higher than your chest was common. Sitting waist-deep while the waves washed over you was common. Wading in the water was even more common. Deep ends, surfing, and riding anything other than a large boat beyond their limits was far less common. Safety was survival.

But, when did living become such a hazard? 

As I drowned in worry, God sent me an invisible floaty in the form of mandatory swim lessons in elementary school. I still have the little certificate from making the swim team, except I don’t remember ever winning anything or competing against any other schools. So, this was probably an “A” for participation kind of thing. 

I learned to swim the real way—head underwater and breathing to the side. I graduated to the deep end. I could do a cannonball and find my way back to the surface. I learned how to tread water in case I was ever on a plane that crashed into the ocean and I needed to survive for days (yup, that’s another story we saw on the news!). 

Yet, the one thing I could never do was float. I couldn’t ever fully trust buoyancy. Trust forces I can’t see? Nah. I decided that if I was ever in a situation where I needed to float for survival, then I would trust God to find another way to save me. And with that, I accepted my failing grade in floating and became survival-level proficient in the other skills. 

Thus, with my rigorous elementary training certificate under my belt, you can imagine my shock at stepping into a pool at my friend’s bachelorette trip in Cabo a few years ago and finding myself nervous to swim. I’m grown, and I understand the basics, but I was rusty. I dipped my head underwater and remembered that unique feeling of water filling your ears. 

I questioned my training. I mentally knew I could swim, but the nervousness came from wondering whether my body would remember and cooperate. It felt unnatural yet familiar. I would have to trust my learning and surrender to becoming one with the water. And, in this case, if anything went wrong, all I had to do was stand up (no deep end in this pool!). 

In that pool, I remembered: I know how to swim. I am an elementary school-level Olympian, which is enough to keep me from drowning. I just needed to reactivate and nurture that skill. 

Sometimes life can feel like you’re in the process of drowning. Not to mention, all the “what ifs” that can run through the mind. What if this goes wrong? What if X happens? What if somehow we become the one in a million news story? 

The interesting thing is that we often only think about the what-ifs that can go wrong. What about all the things that could go right? What if we consistently turn that “what if I drown” into “what if I learn how to swim?” 

In this case, someone did teach me how to swim, but that does not make it any less scary in unfamiliar waters. 

I am thinking about all the deep ends and unknown territories of life. What if learning to swim is better than staying on the sidelines consumed by the fear of drowning? What if the thing you’re looking for is somewhere under the water? 

Our brains are designed to help us survive and detect danger—real or perceived. It’s wired for survival, not for dreaming big, unless you train that muscle. 

Maybe the goal isn’t to stop being afraid of drowning, but to learn how to swim anyway.

When I saw that pool in Cabo, my brain threw up the slideshow of every drowning story I had ever seen on the news, and the time my sister drowned. It didn’t automatically play the one with my certificate, or all the times I’ve swum since elementary school and not only survived, but actually thrived. 

That inner voice of fear thought it was keeping me safe when it was actually keeping me small. 

Well, I still can’t float. But I know how to swim. 

“There is freedom waiting for you, 
On the breezes of the sky, and you ask,
“What if I fall?”
Oh but darling, what if you fly?”

– Erin Hanson