Pools, Protection, and Eventual Perfection.

How do you feel about change? 

Are you terrified of it, or do you feel like you cope with it well enough?

I know for me, it kind of depends on the type of change. Sometimes I'm totally fine, like when i change my underwear everyday. I hope you can relate. 

But other things are a bit harder for me to cope with... For example, leaving my comfy bed in North Idaho to go sleep on rock hard twin beds in the Caribean to serve a mission. Moving out of my family's house of almost 10 years to move into a tiny shared bedroom in an apartment 8 hours away. 

It's hard sometimes, huh? It feels like you're on a huge ship on stormy seas, black clouds surrounding you, and no hope!

And the scary thing is, we're faced with change every day, on different scales. Today I ate muffins for breakfast, and yesterday I ate a Pop Tart and cereal. That's different from swtiching my major or dying my hair. Tomorrow I could get a call that may change the rest of my life. Who knows?

In class last week we talked about the edge of a pool.

Yep! The edge of a pool! :) 

So what in the world does this have to do with change and coping with it? 

One thing that stuck with me from the whole class was a small little thought I took away from this analogy. Above you see a pool's edge, which is technically called pool "coping." The coping has several different functions, and to be honest i don't remember most of them. But one function I remember is the curve. Think about the pools you've been in before. They either have a gutter dipping into the edge, or most commonly there's a curved outing that sticks out. The reason they're like that isn't just for decoration and style. It's to keep the water in. To keep it from splashing out and getting everywhere.

Another thought that struck me is how significant the side of the pool is to most people. We lounge and tan there, and when we were learning how to swim, when we lost our breath or our muscles started to ache, where did we go?? 

THE SIDE. The coping. 

We talked about this while thinking of the changes we experience in families. We all have different trials as families: a cat breaking it's leg, losing a beloved relative, arguments and disagreements, deciding which dessert to eat after dinner, etc and etc. But we all have them nonetheless. But we're all like the water in a sense. We've been put in this "pool", or family, and we all have different roles. I might be the chlorine, while my Mom might be the H20, and my brother Trevor might be the pee. (Haha, hope he doesn't read this). We all work together to make it a family, and the COPING on the edges helps us to STAY TOGETHER, to stay inside. When we handle the stresses of life and even those arguments the best we can, we'll stay in the pool where we are meant to be. 

Now looking at the edge of the pool again, not thinking about that last application. Why did we go to the edge of the pool? What was there for us? 

We found safety and security. We felt a refuge being there, and we could relax. That's what our family is to us. That's what can happen when we cope with change....Because it's all for our good in the end!

When we work together as a family, through all those rough days, job-less months, and infertile years, we find SAFETY in one another. We find that we are STRONGER. We find HAPPINESS. We can GROW TOGETHER to become a perfect family over time!

And, we discover that we make a PRETTY DARN AWESOME SWIMMING POOL.