lessons from the bottom of the pool

A couple of years ago, my husband ordered a Rebel robot to vacuum our pool.  Whenever the filter is running, it roams around sucking up leaves and other debris that sink to the bottom. 

My daughter wrote a short story chronicling my relationship with this little robot entitled, “Water Baby”.  Meredith even calls it my sixth grandchild because I am so attentive to it.  Most of the time it’s just down there doing its thing:  scooting, spinning and dancing in circles.  (I didn’t coin the term “dancing”…my pool guy did.)  

But once in a while the little robot, “Mobie” as we’ve come to call him, runs amok.  He sucks up something that gets stuck in his craw, like a pod from the eucalyptus tree or an acorn from the live oak.  Then he loses his grip…just grinds to a halt and I have to pull him from the bottom and clear out his mouth, gently and under water so he doesn’t become full of air and take many minutes to recover.   Sometimes I have to do something more drastic…separate him from his tubes and pull him out, open him up in a form of robot surgery and dislodge whatever has prevented his gears from moving smoothly.  Once his wheels are rotating freely again, I submerge him, reconnect him to the source of his power and away he goes. 

I wonder sometimes if God treats me like Mobie, enjoying my moves from afar until He sees me getting all bogged down and needing His intervention.  Does He let me go my own way just long enough until I can do it no longer?  Does He calmly pull me from the deep waters where I’ve found myself and gently extricate the stumbling block from my tangled toes or the garbage that I’ve greedily sucked up?  Does He then return me to my routine?

The pool guy told me the other day that even the robot’s tubes have a memory…that they get used to the patterns or routes they take day in and day out.  I guess that I’m like that too.  If my habit is prayer and worship, then my days and weeks go better….  

Because I’m more fortunate than Mobie.  My God is watching from the side of the pool, but He’s also the tube connecting me to Himself…the life-giving presence is His Holy Spirit within me.

Love, Liz