My Interesting Relationship with Swimming

What is this ridiculousness? This is not where I belong.

While in Spain I have been given the unique opportunity to have unlimited access to a gym, tennis courts, ice-skating rink, and olympic sized swimming pool. All of which are located at the "Polisportieu" which is about five minutes walk from the house. The gym I have used quite a bit,n but as I do not play tennis or ice skate, I have not had to pleasure of using those amenities. But when I came to Spain I decided that I would like to become better at swimming laps. Honestly I have never taken swimming lessons nor was I on a swim team at any point in my childhood. So the thought of swimming laps for a period of time was quite daunting for me.

It took a couple weeks but the day finally came when I would try doing laps for the first time. Thankfully Rebeca went with me so I did not look completely lost and out of place. I put on my ridiculously tight swimsuit from my life guarding years at camp and walked out of the dressing room. As I solemnly walked towards the indoor pool, goggles and swim cap in hand, I kept darting my eyes about, wondering what I looked like to these people around me who seemed like professional swimmers. I pulled on my bright orange swim cap, tightened my blue goggles and finally took the plunge into the tepid waters of lane four.

This is basically what I look like with mah cap on..

As I mentioned before, I have never had anyone teach me the proper technique of how to swim (well except for random people giving me pointers in our neighborhood swimming pool but I don't think that counts), so I naturally began to think about how utterly ridiculous I must look while swimming. Also, the ridiculous swim suit, cap, and goggles make me look EXTRA awesome. That is when it hit me, NOBODY FREAKING CARES WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE SO WHY DO YOU? My stupid pride in my (semi okay) ability to run and do other exercises had caused me to become extra aware of how silly I looked while swimming. But honestly, why does that matter? The point of exercise is to become a healthier, better person, and even though I have said that for a long time, it took me awhile to actually "get" it.

Unfortunately, it took an activity that got me completely out of comfort zone in both my physical appearance and in my physical abilities to understand that my confidence should not be found in athletic accomplishments.

The Lord took me by my hand through that situation and lead me to a mirror that revealed a different, ugly side of my heart that needed to be changed. But he did it so kindly and with a twinge of humor which has caused me to be so grateful for his warm and guiding hand. He graciously allowed me to go to the pool for the first time with Rebeca, which enabled me to have guidance on where to go and what to do and gave me confidence for the future. But it was not until the second time that I went, consequently by myself, that I realized the fullness of my silly pride which resulted in me stopping mid stroke and laughing very loudly.

GET ME OUT OF HERE..Kthanksbye

So there you go, a painfully honest post about some things that God has been working out of my heart. Pride and the love of self. I hope you enjoyed this entry...

Thanks for reading!

p.s. I am going to do a "What I wore this week" post tomorrow! =)

p.p.s I AM COMING HOME IN TWO WEEKS!