Swimming for Jesus?

Okay, I wasn't really swimming for Jesus but I just thougth that title sounded cool.

I was actually swimming for the Gold Nugget Triathlon, Anchorage's women-only sprint triathlon. It's always appealed to me: I run, I bike, I....can't really swim.

So I'm practicing. This is the year. If only I wasn't so darned scared of the water.

It's a Monday morning and I'm at the Y at 7 for lap swim. This is what it looks like: swim down the length of the pool with only 2-3 strokes between gasping breaths. Then stop and breath heavily. Swim back. Stop. Breath heavily. Repeat 10 times. Great. That's halfway. And it "only" took me 15 mintues. What to the winners do? I think it's at least under 10 minutes total. I hung my head in shame as I realized how out of shape I was.

I think I'd swum/panted through about 12 lenghts when I happened to hear one line of a song on the radio: each day is getting better. I can't remember the song and didn't even realize the radio was on. Just that one tiny moment of grace was all I needed. Just one line, just one word, just one small sign. That's how Christ comes: in the tiniest ways.

An old story quotes a rabbi as saying, "Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." I think that "coincidence" is another word for God's grace.