“Ish”

So, Carter began swimming lessons last week. As a mom, it’s really hard watching a perfect stranger push your child’s head under water and then watch as they come out coughing and gagging. I now see the benefit, because this week has gone a lot better. He has learned how to keep his mouth closed when under the water and mama no longer has the urge to leap into the water and rescue him after every dunk. He is learning so fast and I’m really impressed with his progress in just a few visits.

Now that he is a little more comfortable with being there, we have been going out on the pool deck before lessons and watching the other kids swim. Carter loves watching them splash and kick. Yesterday he was looking at a group of boys warming up by swimming laps and all of a sudden he got really excited and began shouting, “Ish! Ish!” Then he pointed at his trunks showing me the fish that were on there. I told him that we were at a pool and those were children, not fish. He had no part of it. He kept pointing at one little boy in the corner. I followed his finger and sure enough, there was a kid with over-sized goggles on his face. He was barely poking his head up out of the water and he looked just like a fish. I gave in and agreed with Carter, “Yes, that little boy does look like a fish.”

Sometimes it’s easy to misrepresent ourselves. Even though that little boy was a child, based on his appearance, he looked like a fish. Even though we may claim to be Christians, if we aren’t careful, we can appear to be something completely different. When we wear the goggles of selfishness, pride, insecurity, unforgiveness, and whatever else we try to put on instead, people won’t see that we are trying to follow Christ. They will only know us by our goggles. What a shame. I hope that people won’t confuse me for an “ish”, how about you?