"Drowning"



“Drowning”

February 26, 2014

I may never forget my first Red Cross lifeguard training.  It was time for the proper way to rescue a drowning victim.  One of the dangers to a lifeguard is the drowning victim.  Panic can cause the individual to latch onto the rescuer in such a way as to drown both victim and rescuer.  It brought back memories to a Florida summer and a time when one of my sister’s friends was drowning in our swimming pool.  I was an excellent swimmer and thought nothing about swimming over in an attempt to help her.  She grabbed onto me with a ferocity and strength for which I was unprepared.  We both would have drowned if I had not reached over with a free arm and grabbed the side of the pool.  It has been decades and I still remember the emotions.

People in crisis often react the same way.  After all, hurt people do hurt people.  When the situation is overwhelming, we have a tendency to put a stranglehold on those around us – even the ones trying to rescue us.

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”

--Mother Teresa

When a rescue – or, repeated rescues – goes bad, we have a tendency to withdraw.  In the valiant attempt to help someone else, we have been hurt.  So, as hurt people hurt people, the cycle continues as wounded rescuers withdraw from rescuing others.

I wonder at the view from the Cross.  What must it have been like for Him – He who is perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect in wisdom, and perfect in obedience – to hang in agony upon a torture device?  The rescuer was being pulled down by those He was attempting to rescue.  He could have saved himself and left us to drown in our sins, but instead an incomprehensible love compelled Him to drown in the filth of our sins.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.  Yet He called us to demonstrate the same level of love for others.

John 13:34-35(NIV)
34“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Love someone even past the hurt.

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