Soon as I opened the door this morning and headed out with Penelope I was surrounded and hugged by the oppressive humidity. The day felt, looked and smelled just like the summer days of my childhood. The sky is robin’s egg blue, a few white puffs of clouds floating in the blueness, hot sunshine beaming down warming my skin, making me sweat even in the porch swing. All these memories flooded my mind from summers of my childhood as I walked down the sidewalk with Penelope.

Remember when you’re little, you go swimming in the summer, the first few times the water is so cold and you squeal and shiver and it’s so much fun. Then you get older, you creep down in the water till you’re brave enough to shoulder it in the deep. I remembered my swimming lessons at the Roanoke City pool. The shallow end was about 50 feet deep and we had to cling to the side of the pool with our fingers and toes, hoping we didn’t slip off and drown before our turn with the swimming lesson. The rough gritty cement of the pool ate the skin off our fingers and toes. No steps to sit on, either, just the metal pool ladder. You just slid into the water and prayed you could reach the side and grasp it. If there was a baby pool, I can’t remember. And thank God now for pool steps! I would never be able to climb a pool ladder at my age.

Seriously, it wasn’t that deep but my classmates and I could not touch the bottom of the pool in the shallow end. After the first day I got a good idea how to avoid lesson number two. As daddy turned a corner on our street, I “accidentally” let my swimming lesson ticket fly out the car window. Dumb me, told him it blew out the window. He stopped, retrieved the ticket, lectured me all the way to the pool, and popped my fanny twice when we got out of the car. Can’t remember the rest of the lessons cause I was traumatized by the pool side clinging.

Always wanted to watch the teenage children jumping off the high dive but I was afraid to turn around in case I slipped off the side. I can remember how cool the wet tile felt on my feet and how the chlorine smelled walking through entrance of the building to the pool. I always got a popsicle after the lessons, a reward for surviving the swimming lessons, I guess. Funny thing is I can’t remember going to the city pool to just play in the water. All my memories are tied up with the swimming lesson’s pool clinging.

Guess my baby brother was up at the farm picking up rocks in the pasture ‘cause I can’t remember him at the lessons. If he had slipped off the side, the best I could have done to save him is to look the other way. Sorry, brother! He has a pool at his home at the farm and is so gracious to let us swim anytime we want. I finished my years of swimming lessons with junior lifesaving at the Roanoke Country Club pool. All three of my children took swimming lessons and Thomas and Rosalyn worked as lifeguards and swimming instructors in the summers after high school. Roanoke filled in the city pool many, many years ago. It’s sad children can’t enjoy learning to swim there any more. Learning to swim is such an important childhood skill to master. Swimming lessons save a lot of lives. When Chief was in college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, passing a swimming test was a graduation requirement.

Water is so life giving in so many ways. In scripture reading we equate the water with energy and healing. In Luke 5:4 Jesus tells Simon Peter, “Now take the boat out into deep water. Then put the nets into the water to catch some fish.” Jesus is teaching the fishermen to trust in God’s guidance using the vastness of the sea as a metaphor to deepen the faith of their discipleship. Scripture in Matthew 4 tells us that Jesus told Simon and Andrew to “follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Jesus walking on the water is a reminder that with faith and God’s help anything is possible.

Many scriptures in the Bible speak of water as soul cleansing and healing. When we swim in the ocean, we’re nurtured with spiritual renewal as we connect with the earth’s pulse through God’s grace in the motion and sound of the ocean’s heart beat. We feel God’s power and strength and we believe he is present in the natural world. The vastness of the ocean reminds us of God’s omnipotence and how we are but a spec in the universe.

Water is also a symbol of new life and rebirth. In John 3:5, Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” When we’re baptized with water, the water signifies our spiritual birth into the family of God. Without God’s grace we would die spiritually just as we die physically from a lack of water.

John 4:14 states: “But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” God’s “living water” quenches our spiritual thirst and gives us life.

“Like a spring of pure water, God’s peace in our hearts brings cleansing and refreshment to our minds and bodies.” — Billy Graham