Sink or Swim

I have really been in a precarious place lately. Have you ever been at a place in your life where you feel like you are in a pool of water? You are drowning and there are people all around. They are standing at the edge of the pool all talking and having a wonderful time. You are drowning and they are having a wonderful time.
I do not make a big loud scene or splash a lot. (sometimes I know I take operating in obscurity to the extreme but that is me). I keep waiting for someone to throw me a life ring. No one does. I just keep struggling to stay afloat - I succeed but just barely. Sometimes I go under but I eventually struggle back to the top.
I finally get enough courage to call out and ask for help. Someone turns around and sees me. Instead of the life ring in his hands he throws me a verbal life ring. Lot of good that does a drowning person - I need something to hold on to, I need something to support me, however I reach for the words and they just slip through my fingers. I know they mean well but I know my limitations and I can not swim. Some people do not realize that not everyone can swim - some of us are scared of the water, do not like water, never learned how to swim. Whatever the reason it is not a character flaw it is just the reality of the moment.The "You can do it "statements and the "You are doing a good job, just hang in there" only make matters worse. Besides drowning you begin to feel you are letting others down by your inability to swim.
Finally someone throws me a life ring. All is good with the world or so they think. Maybe just to get rid of it in their hands or just to quiet the waters. But the life ring has a rope so someone can pull from the safe ground. As I wait for someone to pick it up it slowly sinks to the bottom of the pool. They do not hear the hissing coming from the help ring - it has a hole in it. It is slowly losing its air - its ability to help. Pretty soon I will be just where I was before.
Great - My life ring has a hole in it and the rope is at the bottom of the pool. What do I do now?
God has a way of bringing back to us things that we may have told other people. As I was reading yesterday morning - October 13- Oswald Chambers was writing about discouragement and personal growth. (I have begun reading the Bible from the beginning again. I had just started on Exodus.) Then Oswald is talking about Moses. I figured I may just find a nugget from the only Lifesaver I can really count on - and there it was. "If you are going through a time of discouragement there is a time of great personal growth ahead."He went on to discuss how Moses went through a time of discouragement and spent 40 years in the dessert. I pray I do not have to wait 40 years (I would probably be the oldest person in my workplace) but out of that discouragement something great was orchestratede. If Moses waited for 40 years I guess I can hold on a little longer. I have grabbed hold of that life ring and I will stay afloat. I will continue to tread water. He will plug the hole, or take the rope and pull me to higher ground, or give the rope to someone He chooses. He will change my situation or change me or hey maybe both.
I have no airtank in my trunk so I guess I will have to stay out on this one.
em