Swollen Spleens and Swimming Pools

I enjoy reading Aaron Conrad's blog because the guy churns out posts like a demon (apologies Aaron, I know you’re a Tarheel) and it’s always something that sharpens my iron. His recent review of Max Lucado’s “Fearless” really struck a cord with me on two counts when it comes to fearful situations.

Aaron’s experience with worrisome health symptoms and uncertain test results mirrors my own odyssey over the last six months. For me it was an emerging bulge under my left rib cage that started a tussle between my faith and fear.

When I took a new job in February the first thing I did was max out doctor visits with my health insurance package. I scoffed at health coverage previously because I had been in good shape and I didn’t want to spend the money. During my initial physical the doctor explained that the lump I felt was a mildly enlarged spleen, and, no, that wasn’t normal. What followed was four months of living like a lab rat, ill-advised self-diagnosis and learning how to function in the midst of stupefying fear.
Two CT scans, an MRI, an ultrasound, an upper endoscopy, numerous blood tests and a stomach-churning online medical degree later — no answers. Everything with exception of the spleen and a predictably low platelet count was deemed 'normal.'

When I’d ask what the heck was going on, the same word kept emerging: idiopathic. It means “I don’t know.” Doctors can’t just say “I don’t know” because they’re supposed to know. So they throw a five-syllable euphemism at you and hope you don’t have a thesaurus. To cover all their bases they sent me to a cancer specialist (not comforting) and considered medieval measures like liver biopsies and bone marrow aspirations, just to rule out any other possibilities.

Who knew such an unsung and misunderstood internal organ could cause me such grief. Well, my enemy did.

Upon Aaron’s recommendation, I went to check out "Fearless” a couple days ago. In one chapter, author Max Lucado describes a poolside scene that might have been plagiarized from my own life, a defining moment in my young experience.

I was five, and our extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins would gather at my grandparents’ home to swim in their pool. At the time I was the youngest cousin, which gave me ample incentive to prove I belonged with the big boys (and girls). But in this arena, I faltered.

For hours my dad would tread water in the deep end with arms extended, encouraging me to uncurl my toes from the marcite and push off. He knew what I didn’t … that the longer I stood there the more the fear would grow and paralyze me; that a solitary leap of faith would bring more freedom than I could have imagined at that moment, when all I could see was the drain cover below (where the suction monster lived); he knew that this test wasn’t just about having fun in the deep end — it was about trusting a power greater than myself to take care of me and to give me something I never would’ve experienced otherwise.

He also knew what I did know: he knew I couldn’t swim; he knew I was afraid; he knew when I had looked for the strong arms of a father to reach out to me before, they weren’t there.

Dad’s hopeful face dimmed as I folded like a cheap card table and walked away from the water. He watched me as he reluctantly accepted the fearless leaps of my cousins, hoping that the scene would either inspire me to trust as they had or that the image of them sharing that gift with my father would move me out of pure jealousy.

My Uncle Brad was fearless, a daredevil. In the 1960s when Cypress Gardens was the major attraction in the Sunshine State — before Disney — he worked as a show skier, soaring over the crowd with a hang glider strapped to his body.

He was the uncle all the cousins loved. But for him, we would’ve never had our first tug on a Budweiser behind our parents’ backs. Against the better judgment of our folks, he would carry us out to his favorite water ski spot, strap us into a neoprene vest and some sawed-off Dick Pope specials, and teach us how to get up behind the boat. Everyone got a turn, no matter how long it took them to start planing on the surface. I rarely went with them because a kid who couldn’t swim never got to ski. Uncle Brad was determined to change that.

Like my father, he could sense the fear of failure, shame and disappointment looming over my young identity and my future.

He led me to the back of the boat, lowered me in the water and told me to hang on to the transom. I was petrified. Slowly he idled the boat forward while he kept talking to me, his voice always reassuring his presence and control, and my forward progress. He sped the boat up to where I could no longer keep up with it, and full-on panic set in. He just kept talking, aware of what happened, of where I was and how I was doing.

“You’re swimming now!” he said. “All on your own. You can do it. Don’t let those gators get you!”

Soon my cousins who had sat silently watching this intervention chimed in. “Come on, you’re doing it. Keep going. You’re swimming!”

When he sensed I was at the point of exhaustion, Uncle Brad reached into the water and hauled into his boat the biggest smile he’d ever seen on a scrawny 9-year-old. “You ready to ski now?” he laughed. I was ... and I DID that same day — for about .9 seconds.

The story of Peter stepping out of the boat to Jesus has special meaning to me. I was blessed to be taught the same lessons in a way uniquely my own, even though I needed a firm nudge rather than a simple invitation to "come." It was an affirming gift at a young age that planted a great truth in my mind.

Where is our focus? Do we see the worst-case scenario of our own imagination? The alligators? The pool drain? The boat drifting beyond our reach? Or do we hear the voice of the One who will never leave us nor forsake us, who will always catch us when we jump, who will pick us up when we take our eyes off Him in the midst of the wind and the waves?