I think my head is still spinning. I feel like I just resurfaced from beneath a deep body of water. I can calmly look around and take breaths. I am still dripping with the droplets of newly learned lessons. My face and hair are soaked and I can still imagine the feeling of drowning in my own mess. Every water droplet represents a moment of self-awareness, a piece of feedback, one lesson at a time. It all comes together to form one giant ocean called Growth. I am being baptized in this ocean almost incessantly. Some days it still feels like I am drowning, others it feels like a relaxing submersion. In both cases I have learned to fully embrace it. After all, a baptism is an act of cleansing meant to rid us of all that is unclean, unholy, unworthy, and that is exactly what this is. Sometimes my community shoves my head under the surface and other times I take a running leap on my own, both scenarios meant to ensure I am spending as much time in Growth as I need to during this race.
At some point I transitioned from flailing helplessly below the surface to just allowing myself to sit in the submersion of Growth. I cannot pinpoint the moment it happened; all I know is Growth is now an oddly comfortable place to thrive. I suppose it happened around the time I realized I was not alone. At first it felt like everyone, including the Lord, was tossing me off the edge into the water and expecting me to figure it out. What do we do when we are tossed into water in which we cannot swim without a life raft? We flail. We fight. We try to figure out how to stay alive. However, that picture of me being thrown into dangerous waters alone by my community and the Lord was never accurate.
First, the water was never dangerous because I live in a safe relationship with a caring Father and a caring community, neither of whom want me to perceive Growth as a dangerous place. Second, I was never alone because I have a Father who does not stand on the shore while we try to navigate Growth on our own. He throws on His swim trunks and jumps in with us. He will allow us to swim for as long as we can on our own but there are times when He throws us on his back and lets us ride along under the water just like our own earthly daddies did for us when we were kids. He was with me the entire time; I was just too spastic to realize it. My community never left me either. They gave me the space I needed with the Father to work some things out but they never left. I like to envision them chilling nearby on the Team Unwritten party boat, cooking out, belting out ridiculous songs, dancing like the bunch of white girls they are, and waiting for me to join them when I am done swimming.
Growth is not complete. It never truly is if we are doing it right. More specifically, though, I am still in the ocean. Perhaps the Lord and I will climb out and onto the party boat at some point. Perhaps we will stay in for a while. Either scenario works just fine for me.
