Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Lifeguard (11/09/06)
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TITLE: MY FIRST SWIMMING LESSON; TO ASK FOR HELP | Previous Challenge Entry
By david perez
11/16/06 -
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“Hello, kid. Still here, or are you daydreaming?”
“What?” I asked.
“Is this too tight? Your lifejacket, is it too tight?”
“It’s good.”
“Fine. Stay close,” she said. “Don’t go out too deep. I told your mom I’d keep an eye out on you.”
“It’s not like that. I can swim.” I laughed. “Better now than I used to anyway.”
“Just the same, don’t go where I can’t see you.” She sneezed.
“Bless you,” I said.
“Bless me?”
“God bless you.”
“God, huh? You one of those church goers?”
“Something like that.” I checked my surroundings to see if anyone could hear me. Two boys, maybe eighth graders. “My parents make me go,” I heard myself say, but something didn’t feel right when I said that. I sounded like a nonbeliever. So I opened my mouth again, “I do go to church.”
“Well, God bless you too.” Then she rolled her eyes at me.
It angered me, the way she said it, but I didn’t tell her anything. A part of me wanted to say, ‘Don’t you know that Jesus is Lord?’ But I was twelve and she was the lifeguard.
“Now go on. Weren’t you going to go play? Don’t get so far out you can’t swim back. I’d hate to lose you my first day on the job.”
“First day? I figured you’d done this for years.”
“Nope. First day,” she said. “Now go have some fun. But don’t drown on me. There are about a thousand other brats in the water right now.”
I wanted to say something an adult might say, and I wanted to just be quiet like she told me. “God’s watching us all.” I looked over and saw a bunch of kids inflating an innertube. They were listening.
“Well,” she said. “If your God’s not around, I might have to go in and save you myself.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I left her behind. Talking to her made my heart heavy, but the open water and sky above felt good. I was still angry, and before I knew it I was going further out in the water. I looked back and she was still looking at me. But I didn’t need her help. Because I didn’t really know how to swim, I’d be okay as long as I could feel the mushy floor beneath me, and turn and see people all around.
When my head sank passed my nose, I reached down with my foot and couldn’t touch the bottom. But I could float a little and just before a wave would spill over my face I could gulp a quick breath and hold it. The back of my brain told me I was in trouble. Something louder told me I made a mistake. Maybe that lady wasn’t so bad, and I wondered, would I have told her that God watches over us if I knew I was being heard by others? Maybe it was God testing me, to see if I would be ashamed of him, so ashamed I wouldn’t help her. Would she ever get a chance to know Jesus? I remembered speaking to the Lord to ask him.
When I woke, my chest felt broken but I was breathing. I was happy for that, and my lungs were emptying themselves of the sea. I was on the ground. The woman hovering over me had tears on her cheeks, spoke quietly, and said something very strange; that I had saved her. This lady, who had dragged me out from the water, and was now rubbing my hands to warm them, said that I had, saved her. This lifeguard, this woman, was crying; showing weakness, showing strength, for me, for all the world to see, and she asked me if I knew Christ.
She doesn’t know me, I said in my head. She’s trying to convert me, and now I didn’t really care who heard it, I was all ready to say I did believe. Then she asked me something else which I did not expect. She asked me to tell her, about Jesus.
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