N8tivegirl

Learning to Float

(Revisited)

Learning to swim is a lot like learning to trust.

Both require something that feels unnatural at first —

the willingness to surrender.

The first step in swimming is not movement.

It is floating.

Floating requires something simple yet terrifying:

letting go of control and trusting the water to hold you.

Maybe that’s why I never learned to swim.

Because surrender has always been difficult for me.

Letting go of the reins.

Trusting something unseen to support me.

Allowing myself to rest instead of constantly fighting to stay above water.

Scripture reminds us:

“God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.”

Yet fear often speaks louder than truth.

Trust, like floating, requires surrender.

It means lying back in the water without struggling.

You either learn to float,

or you exhaust yourself trying to stay in control.

And many of us live exactly that way.

We fight the currents of life until we are worn out by our own resistance.

But the moment you surrender —

the moment you allow the water to carry you —

something shifts.

You discover you were never meant to hold yourself up.

Trusting God works the same way.

We pray, but then we wrestle the outcome.

We ask, but then we interfere.

Real trust is turning the prayer over to Him

and leaving it there.

Why is surrender so difficult?

Perhaps because obedience feels like loss of control.

We resist rules.

We resist direction.

Even when we know it is meant for our good.

But trust and obedience walk together.

If God calls you into deeper waters,

will you step forward?

Or will fear keep you standing at the edge of the pool?

Faith was never meant to keep us in the kiddie pool of comfort.

At some point, we must trust enough to move into the deep end.

You cannot grab hold of the water.

You cannot control it.

You can only relax and trust it to hold you.

Strangely enough, we were all first held by water.

We were formed in it.

Yet many of us spend our lives afraid of it.

So here I am —

standing at the edge of the pool.

And I realize my only real choice is trust.

Trust means I stop fighting.

Trust means I surrender.

Trust means I stop seeing God as someone to resist

and begin seeing Him as someone who holds me.

When I finally learn to trust Him completely,

I will no longer stand at the edge.

I will float.

And the same water that once frightened me

will become the place where I learn to live freely.