When you can’t touch bottom anymore

I think life can be a lot like walking in a large swimming pool – there are parts that are nice and shallow, and parts where the bottom falls away from under us.

We love the shallow parts. They tend to be easy to move in. Predictable. Low risk. We love it because we can more easily stay in control.

The deep end – that weird feeling when you no longer can touch bottom – not even on tippy toes. Control may still feel like ours if the water is calm and peaceful…but when the waves start, our illusion of control can quickly be tossed away.

Just thinking about a lady I met today in the hospital who has been trying to fight off a very serious health problem, but has begun to realize that she’s way out in the deep end. The waves in her life have pushed her far, far away from the shore. No bottom to touch. No medical cure for the sickness that is quickly destroying her body. Death, it seems, is imminent.

She feels like there is no hope. Nothing to do. Nothing but pulling the plug and ending things on her terms.

That’s a shock to hear if you’re not ready for it.

“I’ve lived a full life. No regrets. I don’t want to keep going like this, and let others see me suffer. See me shut down.” She explained.

I swallowed, feeling like someone had punched me in the stomach. I had no idea things were so serious – was expecting a routine visit after a simple operation with a discharge and return home in a day or two. Instead: no trip home. This very well could be the last time I see this person.

Conversation was quickly shifted off the topic, and on to me. My family. My work. My life, and I politely follow along while all I can hear in the back of my mind is: why? Why? WHY? Stop talking about me….you’re the one who has things needing to be said….aren’t you?

The conversation is cut short, as a nurse arrives to help my friend clean up. I ask my friend if she’d like to pray with me – but that is also refused. “I’m all prayed up. Thanks.”

Felt like a lie to me. Another deflection.

I walk out, and can’t stop thinking about her all day.

“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future, and life is worth the living, just because he lives.” – Bill Gaither

Woke up with that song running through my head today. Kind of bugged me after visiting with my friend. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus, and I’ve trusted in Him for as long as I remember.

I’ve had a few spots where I couldn’t touch bottom in my life. Spots of losing everything. Spots of losing my Mom to Cancer. I’ve followed Him through, and have seen God carry me when I could no longer move forward.

I’ve never had my body shut down, though. I’ve never had to live with pain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Depression, yes. Feelings of intense brokenness…yes. Feelings of being a complete and utter failure…yes. But not pain all the time as things stop working inside me.

My friend was living with that. All the time, which was what was driving her to end things.

Made me wonder: would my faith…my hope…my trust be enough to move through something like that?

As I thought it through, and prayed it through today, I remembered a section of the Bible that I really appreciate.

Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
³     he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

He makes me lie down in green pastures…He leads…..he refreshes…He guides. (It isn’t me, is what I noticed there.)

And then – after the Psalm establishes who is leading here, it then says a most puzzling thing: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley…”

Sometimes God’s paths take us into darkness. Sometimes we are taken to the darkest of places by the same Shepherd who makes us to lie down in green pastures. Who leads us beside quiet waters.

But even though He takes us into the darkness, if we look to the side we can see that He is walking here with us…His rod and staff are clumping along through the rocky path with me. I am not alone.

My intent is not to preach.Not at all. These are more like…thinkings.

I honestly don’t know how my friend must be feeling to want to pull the plug on her life. And I honestly don’t know how she would respond if she heard that song: Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.

Would the words matter, or would she shrug them off? Scoff. Whatever!

I truthfully don’t have the control over my life that I often think I have. I also don’t have control over what will happen to me in the next minute or hour or day, though I love to think I do. But really, I am just a few fragile steps away from the deep end, right? Sometimes all it takes is a wave to make me loose my balance.

And then the knowing begins….is it me leading me forward? Or is it the Good Shepherd? Can I remember how He has saved and helped me in the past in order to help me reach out in trust when my feet no longer touch bottom?