15 Minutes of Faith

The first time I jumped into the water - it was October and freezing - so I wrote it off to nerves and the hypothermia effect of every muscle as my body locked up due to oxygen deprivation.  That's what I kept telling myself even though every cell in my brain was screaming otherwise.  So I was left to cast away the hours of practice, i.e. training, and inefficiently swim and breast stroke my way across the lake and back again.  All the while my two friends were gracefully skimming across the water looking like Olympic athletes.  Periodically one of them would turn back prompt me and encourage me on....on the outside I was laughing, which I tend to do in moments of hysteria, on the inside; however, there was a battle raging between sheer panic and nightmarish fear.  I thought I would actually die before it was over. 

As you can see, I am still here. 

The next day, race day, I figured I had the jitters out and this lake swim was going to be a cinch.  Think again.  This time I jumped in, water was still freezing, Beth took off with Ivey and I momentarily considered stalling out and heading back to the dock, but that underlying competitive simmer that I have, the one that often gets me into trouble, the one that will not allow me to let Matt win an argument (even when he is right), shoved me farther from the shore.  Not to mention, my boys were watching, along side my husband, friends and a many strangers...all around the lake ... all cheering everyone on, with the exception of me.  I am most certain they were all whispering "Oh, would you look at her.  Bless her...she's tryin."  Let's just say it was an ugly swim.  But somehow time stood still and I forgot about everyone there with the exception of Ivey, Beth and the battle going on inside my head, again.  However, this time I knew exactly what the problem was.

I have hashed this out with myself a million times. I grew up chasing my uncle and aunt around a lake behind a ski boat.  No fear.  The only thing I worried about was a toilette flushed sewer fed alligator that had some how found itself in Lake Weiss just waiting on me, specifically, to fall from my skis.  Then with one death role - it would rip my leg right off.  Again, this never happened ... except in my over active imagination.  Other than that, most summers I grew gills from the amount of time we spent jumping off the dock and swimming around in the murky water.  Not to mention the years spent with prune shriveled fingers from hours in a pool with crystal clear water there's no issues either.  So why the problem now?

The problem is crystal clear, the solution is a whole other issue. 

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Last year my friend Beth asked if she could take Ivey through a triathlon. A real triathlon ... Awesome.  Beth's only request was that I run Ivey in the running leg of the race.  Okay.  Still, I couldn't help but to want to be with Ivey during the entire race.  So haphazardly, without thinking through the logistics, I thought it would be fun to train to swim and bike along side them. I can swim and ride a bike, so why not?  Plus, this was literally an answered prayer.  I asked that Someone appear, literally just the week before I begged for someone to help me, to pull me back into the world of running.  Unbeknownst to Beth, she was the answer to a prayer. (Some things are not coincidence)  She gave me a goal with no reason or excuse, even if I found was one, to back down.  I had to run my baby girl. 

One hang up I have had since Ivey's birth is this .... no matter how I try to know Ivey or understand what it is to be her, really be her, I can not.  My heart wants to know what it is to live in Ivey's world.  But her world is so much more than I can fully grasp.  In efforts to try, besides daily tasks, I took a course on deafblindness last year, endured several simulations being deafblind, wrote papers depicting my experiences, still, I am not deafblind.  I have conceptual information. I do not have motor issues or mental implications.  I walk.  I speak.  I am not my daughter.  She is not me.  She can not experience my world any more than I can truly experience her world.  A simple fact that I can never change. 

For years now through teaching friends about Ivey, training teachers at her school, discussing her at conferences, my own classwork, even the Dialogue in the Dark (which absolutely about sent me over the edge from overwhelming fear of her deafblind word) -- I have attempted, yet these tries are merely simulations.  Pretend.  No matter how real we try to make the experience, it will never be Ivey's experiences.

So in the future when the airplane pilot comes over the intercom and declares engine failure, chances are he has sat through some grueling simulations....but you'll find out what he is made of when it is the real thing ... simulations, no matter how seriously taken, are still pretend. 
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When I jumped into the water - the cold was shocking, my limbs became less mobile.  I grasped for air.  When I submerged my face I was blind with no sense of direction, just surrounded by dark murky water.  When water filled my ears I could not hear anything but muffled voices from the shore, water splashing as swimmers entered the water and my own chaotic thoughts.  In the midst of it was the feeling of being rushed and pushed to go forward.  I tried to focus on Ivey and I panicked. 

This was Ivey's world. 

This unexpected experience was no simulation, for the first time I knew what it was truly like to be Ivey.

I hated it.  I wanted OUT. 
But if you know Ivey then you know she LOVES water. 

I Love The Water too.
So it's not really the water that is my issue.  No, it is the experience.  It is not the swimming - it is the flooding of emotion - literally.  Emotions. I feel as if I am literally drowning in raw emotion.
This has become my own personal battle to be more like my daughter.  Courageous when fear should prevail.  Faithful when there is no reason.  Unconditionally trusting.  Unabashedly FEARLESS.

Her faith astounds me. 
Her trust humbles me. 

Everyday she trusts unconditionally in all of us.  I really don't know why.   Some days I don't even trust myself.  But I have never doubted God's hand in her life.  She was intricately made and specifically chosen for her place in time.  She is my teacher.  Some how she knows that we will keep her safe.  She reaches her hands into a constant oblivion.  She steps into open space.  She swims beneath the water's surface always knowing that we, you and I, will be there to pull her up.  How she does it I do not know.  What faith I though I had was only a false security in my mind.  I want what she has.  Peace.  I want to know that there is someone there to protect and rescue me, even if I can't see them. 
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So I spent the winter and spring swimming harder than I have ever swam in my life, literally. Just check behind my ears and you'll see gills. All of which I could not do without my friend Angie, she herself is an inspiring woman and amazing athlete.  My plan - to beat this mental game raging in my head.

As of today two more triathlons have been marked off my list, without fail the water won. There is another coming up this weekend. This time Beth will be there again, but not Miss Ivey.  My plan is to give up my battle for control and let God take the reigns. So the control freak in me is taking on a task. Relinquishing the control freak that has taken so many years to perfect.  This is going to be a phenomenal task especially when I  exude needing control as I turn into a waterlogged, wetsuit wearing hysterical girl whom looks like a water phobic cat that has been thrown in the lake. So other than my own mental sideshow, the swim is going to be great! 

I want to be like my girl.  I want to move through this world unafraid and with unabashed conviction.  I want to be like Ivey.

Faithfully Fearless!

So Lord come Sunday morning, please help me to be more like my daughter and fill my soul with 15 minutes of her relentless FAITH +