Lifeguarding to Life-Giving
By Elizabeth Fleet
This was nothing like I expected. My official job title was “lifeguard” and yet there I was cleaning bathrooms, mopping floors, and picking up trash. It was a hot summer at a church camp on Ft. Gibson Lake, and I was a college student trying to find God’s direction for my life. When I had agreed to be a lifeguard, I had really thought that I would spend the entire day at the pool. My idea included watching kids swim, saving them in the event they started drowning, and generally being admired by them, all while getting a nice tan. I got a major reality check the first day when the assistant camp director, Clint, handed me a toilet brush and informed Rachel, the other lifeguard, and myself, that we would be cleaning cabin and tabernacle bathrooms and stalls every day before lunch. All 60 of them.
Wait, what?
The 12-hour workdays started when the sun came up and consisted of vacuuming the pool, balancing chemicals, spraying off the decks, making sure the water slide worked properly by going down it once (or twice), and yes, cleaning the pool house bathrooms. That all had to be done before the campers were awake.
After breakfast, we grabbed the keys to a very uncool 1980’s gray church van that had been donated to the camp. It was packed full of housekeeping supplies that we would use for the next few hours to check on all the cabins and make sure they were clean and stocked. We usually got a break after lunch and then headed to the pool to corral or at least try to corral a group of 100 or more energetic kids loaded with ice cream and candy. I actually did lifeguard that summer, but only between the hours of 2-4 pm. We had other duties in the evenings that rotated between rock climbing, serving dinner, and helping in the Snack Shack after services. Each night, after thoroughly checking my bed for spiders (because there were spiders literally everywhere), I would fall asleep exhausted, and also very happy.
“He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
Fast forward 18 years, four kids and a gray minivan later, I laugh about those memories of church camp and how some of those experiences, which I wouldn’t trade for anything, parallel with my life today of being a mom.
Being a mom is nothing like I expected.
Being a mom requires giving of yourself in ways that may not be acknowledged or appreciated.
Being a mom requires giving of yourself in ways that can be both exhausting and soul satisfying.
Being a mom requires giving of yourself in ways today that God may not use until later in the future.
The Bible says in Matthew 10:39 that “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (KJV).
In other words, whether you lifeguard or you are in a season where you are giving of yourself as a mom--it may not be anything like you expect.
You may be surprised that it’s more.