Good morning…
“Grandma, look, a mermaid!” I heard a little girl’s voice shout from the shore as I swam this summer in Tingley Lake. Treading water, I gave my best “nod, smile, wave,” like a beloved princess decked out at Disney World.
Mermaid. I rarely run into that word, but the day after we returned from visiting family in PA, I happened upon a journal in a discount store. “I am a mermaid,” read her sparkly cover. The next day I went to my favorite local shop and, I am not kidding, I ran into a mermaid necklace on the 50% off rack. Queerly she captivated my mind, so I visited her a few times, pondering her purchase, before finally draping her around my neck and taking her home. The repetition did not end. I went to our grocery store soon after and the “most on sale” bottle of red wine had a mermaid on its label. To clinch it all, out of the blue on a walk that week, a friend mentioned a book title: The Mermaid Chair.
Sensing the Spirit’s movement, I leaned into the surround sound, I ordered the book, and I was invited into these introductory words.
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Excerpt from The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
…my father used to tell me that mermaids lived in the waters around the island. He claimed he’d seen them once from his boat – in the pink hours of the morning when the sun sat like a bobbing raspberry out on the water. The mermaids swam to his boat like dolphins, he said, leaping through the waves and diving…”But their main job is saving humans. That’s why they came to my boat – to be there in case I fell over.”
In the end the mermaids did not save him. But I wonder if perhaps they saved me. I know this much: The mermaids came to me finally, in the pink hours of my life.
…I dove with arms outstretched, my life streaming out behind me, a leap against all proprieties and expectations, but a leap that was somehow saving and necessary…I dove and a pair of invisible arms simply appeared, unstinting arms, like the musculature of grace suddenly revealing itself. They caught me after I hit the water, bearing me not to the surface but to the bottom, and only then did they pull me up. (2-3)
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Now in the pretty pink hours of the morning, God defines more clearly my ministry as a mermaid. I totally trust invisible arms to simply appear, like the musculature of grace suddenly revealed. I have been caught as I hit the water, taken down, and lifted up from life’s bottom. My main job has become saving humans. God equips my arms to catch others who leap overboard against all expectations. Now as you splash through the hard surface, we sink down to life’s bottom together. In saving and necessary ways, we are both pulled up by the muscular, comforting arms of God’s grace.
He comforts us every time we have trouble so that when others have trouble, we can comfort them with the same comfort God gives us (2 Corinthians 1:4, ERV).
…Sue…
P.S. My “favorite local shop,” The Front Porch of Vinings, is hosting an outdoor market on Saturday. Donations will be accepted for Wellspring Living, a non-profit organization transforming the lives of those at risk or victimized by sexual exploitation. Follow the shop’s link to get a list of gift cards, household items, and personal items needed to help comfort those being saved in our community. Then watch the video on Wellspring’s website to see the beautifully transformative work God is doing in the lives of brave women who have leapt overboard into the strong arms of grace.
