Lifeguards

It is the middle of July in central Illinois and it is hot and muggy. It is one of those days when you go out of the house that the air is so saturated with humidity it feels like you have walked right smack dab into a brick wall. Everyone is looking for a pool, a beach, or a lake to find some cool relief. Safety around water is always a hot topic on the news; as well it should be, since according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Every day, about ten people die from unintentional drowning. Of these, two are children aged 14 or younger. Drowning is the sixth leading cause of unintentional injury death for people of all ages, and the second leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 14 years.” That comment sent me searching for water safety tips and I came across this article.

Drowning Doesn't Look Like What You'd Expect

Those words caught my attention. I knew what I expected to see was someone flailing their arms, kicking, and screaming for help. If drowning didn’t look like that, what did it look like?

Dr. Pia, in an article entitled "It Doesn't Look Like They're Drowning" featured in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine (Fall 06)

Drowning people are physiologically

1. Unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled before speech occurs.
2. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
3. Drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs."

WOW! Who knew? Of course, there are signs of distress before this final stage that lifeguards are trained to spot. Thank the Lord there are those who watch diligently over those around them. My thoughts began to be pulled from the natural to the spiritual. Does someone who is spiritually drowning look like I would expect? Is it possible that people who are spiritually drowning surround me and I simply don’t see? What do I expect a spiritually drowning person to look like? Do I expect to see a homeless person living on the street? Do I expect to see scantily dressed women walking the street or men hiding a brown paper bag holding a pint of whiskey? Do I allow my expectations to blind me to the man in the Armani suit or the woman walking through the airport with the real Coach bag and Christian Louboutin pumps with signature red sole. What about people I know personally? Do I notice the young mother of three sitting beside me in church every Sunday who is overwhelmed with the demands of life and feels like she is drowning? Do I notice before it is too late the junior high boy who is being bullied at school and is wondering if life is just too hard? Is it possible the grumpy man in front of me at Wal-Mart just found out he no longer has a job or the angry woman at the post office just received a call from her doctor and heard the word cancer?

The truth is that people are on the verge of drowning all around me and I just don’t notice. “Blindness isn’t a result of too little light that is darkness. Blindness is when you are not able to see when there is light all around you.” (Source unknown)

What does a drowning person need? They need a lifeline and someone to throw it out to them. Jesus is that lifeline and He is counting on you and me to make sure that those around us are brought to safety. There is an old song, I know the words are dated, but take time to read the message.

Throw out the lifeline across the dark wave;


There is a brother whom someone should save;


Somebody’s brother! Oh, who then will dare


To throw out the lifeline, his peril to share?

Throw out the lifeline with hand quick and strong:


Why do you tarry, why linger so long?


See! he is sinking; oh, hasten today


And out with the life boat! Away, then, away!

Throw out the lifeline to danger-fraught men,


Sinking in anguish where you’ve never been;


Winds of temptation and billows of woe


Will soon hurl them out where the dark waters flow.

Soon will the season of rescue be o’er,


Soon will they drift to eternity’s shore;


Haste, then, my brother, no time for delay,


But throw out the lifeline and save them today.

Lifeguards are trained to diligently watch those around them for any type of distress. The moment they spot a person in distress they act. As you go throughout you day, ask God to make you aware of anyone who just may need a lifeline and then act. You never know this may be the day you save a life.