We’ve been helping our God-given granddaughter learn to swim this summer. Most of the time, she swims in shallow enough water so she can stand up if she needs to, but she tends to forget that. If suddenly her mask starts leaking or she runs out of air, or anything else that suddenly scares her, she begins to panic.

To help, we came up with something for her to remember. We told her, “If anything happens and you are not feeling good about it, stand up, take a deep breath, and wipe your eyes.” We frequently remind her of this before she starts swimming, and especially before practicing a new skill. 

She does great when it’s fresh on her mind, that without any assistance from us, she can immediately seek safety and comfort. For fun, we started referring to her eyelashes as the windshield wipers God gave her. So when she is frantically wiping her eyes, we say tilt your head back and use your windshield wipers!

When you and I are navigating the waters of life, and relationships or situations become difficult or complicated, we might start feeling stuck. We may even look around for someone to save us, clutching at whoever/whatever’s closest. We can get so bogged down by all the details that we forget it is within our power to stand up, take a deep breath and wipe our eyes. It doesn’t change what’s happening, but everything changes for us as we go from feeling desperate to feeling safe, empowered and more at ease.

Sometimes I still let the complexities of hard situations lead me to believe I’m trapped without options. Seldom is that true. Even when we can’t change a single thing, we can change how we feel about it. We always have a choice about how we hold our reality.

We can bear an attitude of a powerless victim, adding the latest challenges to a long list of everything we’ve had to suffer through. Or we can embrace an attitude of hope-filled surrender, willing to take the steps we can while remaining open to believing that everything is working for our good, even if it doesn’t look that way in the moment.

Two very different experiences can occur in the same set of circumstances. We can’t control much of what goes on around us, but we can control what goes on inside of us, in our thoughts.

Are you feeling down or trapped today? What if serenity is only one thought away? Let me give you a little reminder to stand up, take a deep breath and wipe your eyes. Look around. Despite the hardships, grace gives us many reasons to be grateful. As always, I’m speaking to myself first, but I know I’m not alone. You’re not alone either. God bless.