Every so often I think about an event that occurred when I was five years old, and when I do I remember the panic and terror accompanying it as though it happened yesterday.  What was that event? 

I almost drowned.

It was a hot day in summer.  When my dad was working at the Pentagon in Washington DC, my step-mother took my brothers and I to a public swimming pool.  The pool was crowded and I had not yet learned how to swim.  Like most swimming pools this one had a deep end for diving and a shallow end for splashing around.  Naturally, it was my intention to stay in the shallow end, so I clung to the edge of the pool.  All around me kids were squealing and hollering and splashing each other.  Everyone was having a good time.  Me too, until something dreadful happened.

I let go of the edge with the intention of bob-walking over to the other side (I’m sure everyone reading who has ever been in a swimming pool knows what I’m talking about).  As I bobbed in the water, allowing my body to momentarily float before touching bottom again and then pushing forward, I found that each time I touched bottom I was somehow in a little deeper.  It seemed that the slope of the pool bottom was luring me ever-deeper.  Strangely, I could do nothing about it.  The more I bobbed and tried pushing myself back to shallower water the deeper I got.  And then I was up to my nose. 

Contrary to public opinion, drowning is not typically something where a victim waves his arms and screams for help.  Drowning is a silent killer.  This was true in my case.  I did not scream.  I couldn’t, I was too panicked.  Kids were all around me having a blast and yet I was about to drown.  It happens thousands of times every year in the U.S. to kids and teens.  Even now I get the heebie-jeebies thinking about it.

And then something wonderful happened.  I believe it was a miracle.  Suddenly, out of nowhere a boy on an air mattress appeared alongside me and told me to hang onto the side.  I grabbed hold and he paddled me to the shallow end where I was able to once again take hold of the pool edge.  Kids were still squealing and hollering and splashing as though nothing had just happened. 

Let that sink in a moment.  A crowded pool, and the one kid with an air mattress sees my plight and rescues me.  I don’t know where the boy on the raft came from.  I hadn’t seen him earlier in the pool but there he was, a moment––the exact moment––before I would’ve gone under.  I didn’t see the boy afterward either.

I have shared other angel stories but I truly believe that this was one of God’s messengers, whether the messenger was angelic or a very observant kid with a servant’s heart.  It wasn’t my time to go, and God graciously dispatched one of His “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation,” (Hebrews 1:14).

The takeaway for this little drama is that we serve a God who is omniscient, One who is omnipresent and all-powerful.  What’s more, He is a wise and loving God, holy in all His Triune Personhood, and He loves you and He loves me. 

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29–31).

Dear one, God is watching over you and your loved ones.  His eye is on the sparrow; certainly He is watching over you.  Nothing will happen in your life, good or ill, apart from His will.  

“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6).

Be encouraged.