Is the Joy Worth the Work?

One of my favorite things as a swim instructor is that moment when a student has it all come together for them. They understand the stroke, the body positioning required, the breath control patterns, and their body seamlessly performs all that their mind is asking of it. Not only is it a beautiful thing to watch, but it is a joy to see their face as they realize what they just accomplished.

That’s an easier thing for some of my students than it is for others. Many of my students are challenged with physical or intellectual hurdles that make those joyous accomplishments more work. One, in particular, comes to mind. She loves swimming. Being in the pool gives her a freedom of movement that she rarely enjoys elsewhere. The compression of the water around her limbs, the warmth and buoyancy of it, all give her sensory input that allows her nervous system to relax a bit and fire more deliberately.

During this student’s last lesson, she accomplished a huge goal. You see, because of the specific neurological condition that she has, control of any part of her body is a hard-fought, conscious thing. Consider having to willfully concentrate on extending your arm, cupping your hand, and retracting your arm every time you wanted to complete a swimming stroke. Exhausting, right? Now, compound that with misfires of your brain’s signals that also cause the muscles you are trying to use (and the ones you’d like to remain still and calm) to seize erratically. Moving just one portion of her body in a deliberate manner takes a will and focus of steel.

Yet, during this lesson, she managed to simultaneously extend her arms forward, her legs back into a full float, close her lips, and exhale as her face entered the water. Not one muscle group, but multiple muscle groups, working in unison and under control! Her whole body working together to perform a safe swimming position! I’m not sure how to describe to you the brilliance of her smile as she completed that motion, came up for air, and collapsed into an exhausted heap on my shoulder. Her mom and I both teared up. She was completely worn out – and her whole face beamed her joy.

Y’all, the more I have considered that moment - what it took out of her, but also the immensity of its beauty and purposefulness…the foundation and courage that it built to continue on…the hope that there is more ahead for her – the more I see a picture of the body of Christ. In so many ways, the many members of the body of Christ experience the same kind of disconnectedness that my student experiences. Arms not coordinated with legs, breathing erratic and labored; all of it getting only partial information from the brain which causes painful, jerking movements in various directions. Never fully knit together as ONE body, with ONE direction, under the control of the mind of Christ.

What if? What if we had the steely determination to really submit ourselves to listening to the instruction of the Holy Spirit? What if we took the time to discipline ourselves to not just go off in the way we feel like, but consider how our movements coordinate with the movements of others in the body? What if we became one unified rather than many scattered? I bet I wouldn’t be able to describe the joy that would bring, either. It will probably be exhausting. But maybe it’s worth a try.

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” – I Corinthians 12:12-13
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“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” – Psalm 133:1