The swim instructors separated everyone into groups of three. My group included a three-year-old girl with long dark hair, a five-year-old girl with red hair and freckles, and me. Parents sat around the perimeter of the pool, excitedly watching their children, cheering, and capturing every moment on film. However, no one was there clapping or cheering for me . . . a thirty-two-year-old woman at a swim school for small children.

As a young child, I escaped learning to swim after several failed attempts. Then, at around age nine, an angry adult forced me into the deep end of a pool and held me under, determined to make me overcome my “discomfort” and teach me to swim. For years after, I couldn’t bear water in my face. Water gun fights and bobbing for apples were unthinkable activities. Showers were difficult. And as friends enjoyed summers in the pool, I felt fear and shame. I even avoided being baptized for years due to the prospect of being fully immersed.

As an adult, I logically knew that I could learn to swim. God made our bodies buoyant, and people can learn to breathe underwater. Still, believing I could swim wasn’t as easy knowing I could. Thankfully, after the gentle encouragement of a Bible teacher, I came to believe that God wanted me to trust Him with this fear.

Determined to learn how to swim, I enrolled for swim lessons at a swim school for children. I felt very terrified and self-conscious. But for the sake of my toddler, and for my own sake, I wanted to overcome this fear that gripped me. I wanted my son to enjoy the water without my panic in the background.

As I entered the pool, I tried to ignore the other parents. I tried to remember that the eyes of my Heavenly Father were upon me. I sensed God smiling because this wasn’t just about learning how to swim. This was a deliberate decision to revisit trauma and the fear that crippled me. This was about trusting God in a way I could not ever imagine.

As the instructor led the three-year-old across the pool, the five-year-old looked into my eyes and excitedly said, “Do you want to practice elevators?” My first thought was, “Absolutely not! I don’t want to go down under the water and pop back up.” But . . . when a freckled, five-year-old smiles wide and grabs your hands like she’s your best friend, you say, Yes!

This five-year-old girl wasn’t afraid — and she showed me I, too, could be strong and courageous. So, she held my hands, and we went up and down in the water. I don’t know how I did it, but I did! That little girl will never know how God used her to help me, how meeting her was a divine appointment.

God met me in the pool that day. He knew I was scared, embarrassed, and full of shame. But I showed up, and He met me there, in the fear. God provided someone to be with me that day. His message was tender: “I see you, and you don’t have to do this alone.”

In the following months, my life took an unexpected turn — a turn more terrifying than my fear of the water. My obedience to God in learning how to swim and allowing Him to enter into my past pain, made it easier to walk with Him through new traumas of the present.

I went on to take adult lessons, learning how to swim at a local YMCA. It was not easy; I often prayed in the water and brought to mind Isaiah 41:10 (NKJV), “Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”

Now, I continue to swim several days a week — and each lap declares victory. As I swim, I pray . . . and I remember how God is good and that He meets us in our fears. He can calm the storm within, and He is fully trustworthy. He upholds us with His righteous right hand . . . even in the water.

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