"Who's the hero?" | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: "Who's the hero?" | Previous Challenge Entry
By Frank Salerni
08/31/06
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“Who’s the hero?”

I had always been a powerful swimmer.

I never gave it a second thought as I started to swim across the river to the other side, that beautiful sunny day.

Maybe I’d better go back and start at the beginning?

I was trained to swim as a small child. I never stopped training until I was way up into my teens.

The local plunge offered their last swimming class. It was my most coveted goal, “Jr. Life Guard.”

Their were times I literally swam for eight hours a day, between the time I spent in the pool and my convenient Long Beach seashore upbringing.

It wasn’t even considered a challenge, by me, to venture out across that calm river.

I wanted to be the hero father, so on our family day that we shared each week, I took my wife, three daughters, lunch, and my two dogs to Myrtle Beach Oregon.

It was a short drive from our Southern Oregon home and besides, it was HOT!

The focus of my adventurous daughters desire, was to jump off of a huge rock on the opposite shore and then to swim back and do it time and again.

It was relatively safe, and they had my blessings.

“Go for it!” I said, and they did just that.

As I was wrestling with my two large dogs, (I must have been nuts to have brought them) and I noticed one reluctant child on the edge of the rock, gazing at the water below.

I knew that feeling of uncertainty, so I decided to swim across and tread water just beneath her, so that she could gain confidence and jump within swimming distance of her dad.

I jumped in the water and started across.

The water was remarkably cold in comparison to the air temperature, and it took my breath away.

I was just a short distance away from shore when I remembered suffering a pulled hamstring a few weeks earlier.

It was then that I tried to slow down my pace, and bounce off the bottom of the river in order to regain composure.

There was no bottom!

But, I had skills, backstroke, sidestroke, butterfly, crawl… nothing was working.

My legs were useless, my upper body strength was not what I remembered; oh yeah, my resent battle with diabetes was working overtime on my once muscular frame, and the constant gasping for air due to the difference in temperature was causing me near panic.

My thoughts turned negative as I heard my innermost voice exclaim, “I’m not going to make it!”

I’m not a kid anymore, not invincible. What am I doing, I’m young at heart and mentally in my twenties, but reality has me at fifty-six years old!

“Oh, God… I’m in trouble! Don’t let me have a heart attack… don’t allow my children to witness their fathers untimely death, on such a pleasant day as today! Save me God!”

As I was praying I remembered to focus on one single point, one single goal. A rock of offence became my rock of my salvation. Not just the physical rock but remembering whom Jesus is.

With all my weaknesses, He became my strength. Inch by inch I came closer, until I hugged the tip of a moss-covered stone that became my hope of rest. My real rest was in Him.

I panted desperately until I renewed my strength.

“God, forgive me for trusting in my own self-confidence. I should have prayed before I started the swim.”

Once my priorities were back in order, I wasn’t half as concerned in realizing that sooner or later… I had to swim back!

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