Three year old Rosie, my granddaughter, was taking swimming lessons at a community pool, and refusing to get into the water. Her instructor, a young man who was also a life guard, called her “Little One” as he tried to convince her to at least try to get used to the water. When I heard him call her “Little One,” I was pretty sure this was a lost cause, as,in fact, it prove to be.

One day when her mother and I were with her at the pool , and we were standing in the shallow end, her mother said, “Rosie, swim to my bellybutton.” Without a second thought or a single protest, Rosie put her head under water and swam like a frog to her mother. I was amazed, but her mother just smiled. It was only the beginning, and Rosie never looked back. She never had another formal lesson, but she became a reliable swimmer.

Before he went to the cross, Jesus said to his disciples, “I no longer call you ‘servants’. . . Instead, I have called you ‘friends.’ (John 20:17) After his resurrection, he called them ‘brothers’ to Mary Magdalene: “Go to my brothers and tell them. . . ‘ (John 20:17) From then on, the disciples never looked back. Their relationship to Christ fueled their actions for the rest of their lives. Their unbreakable bond with Jesus enabled amazing, even miraculous things in them. Jesus had said to them before, “Everything is possible for one who believes.” (Mark 9:23), and for the eleven (later twelve) every word was true as they went out to spread the Faith.

Rosie’s unshakable faith in her mother, and her customary obedience combined to over come all the hurdles to swimming that she couldn’t manage with the life guard.

“The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and He helps me,” (Psalm 28:7) Both the Old and the New Testaments testify to God’s unfailing, loving help. He seeks the bond by which we can trust Him: “ Our Father” are the very words Jesus gives us to begin our trust and secure our relationship. “Because you are sons, , God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ (Galatians 4:6)

We cannot swim toward God’s bellybutton, because He has given us His very heart, and poured it out for us; but we can move more and more toward Him and even learn to swim in His Spirit by swimming in His Word. As Jesus says to us, “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

Love in Him,

Prue