Have you ever bled green?

No, I’m not talking sports teams here.  I don’t even know which team “bleeds green.”

I’m talking about really bleeding green.

I have…
Picture this…you’re swimming along, taking in all the sights around you, and you scrape your knee on something…probably the sunken boat you’re checking out.  You look down and you see green liquid in the water around you.  It’s coming from your…

Wait…what?

Green?

There is something GREEN coming out of my leg…

Oh, no worries, it’s just blood and it’s green because…

Wait…what, again?

It’s blood!!!  I’m in the ocean.  Did I mention I am several feet below the surface?  Well, several, as in more than 10 or 20…maybe more than 30 or 40…I don’t remember any more.  I do, however, remember bleeding GREEN blood.  Bleeding green in an environment that I was VISITING.  This environment is home to animals that are much greater, meaner, fiercer, with much bigger TEETH…

Before I met my husband, I used to love SCUBA diving.  I dreamed of getting certified ever since my dad started diving on our family trips to the Florida Keys.  I begged my parents to let me get certified.  I LOVED the ocean…always have.  Imagine…they wouldn’t foot the bill for that one…something about me never finishing things.  So, I gave up playing the flute after only a day or two.  Can’t a girl live down a few failed attempts in her life?

This all being said, I did receive my SCUBA certification…SEE…I told you!!!

The GREEN BLOOD is all about the light spectrum…you know, short wavelengths, long wavelengths…ROY G. BIV.  The farther you dive, the less light…the deeper you go, colors start dropping off.  Red first, then orange, then yellow…you get the idea.  Well, at a certain depth, your blood appears GREEN.  Cool, huh?

Let me just tell you…if you have never submerged yourself below the surface of the ocean, and experienced, with your own eyes, the immense beauty that is hidden just below your boat motor…you are missing out on a truly remarkable, amazing…wordless treasure.

Snorkeling is cool, don’t get me wrong, but there is something to be said about diving.  It takes faith, it takes trust…

You give up a lot of your own control when you jump out of the back of a boat with only a tank of air strapped to your back.

And try night diving…there are some things you see at night, underwater…EEEEK!!

When you are underwater, you are ALONE….no, I didn’t dive alone, but communication is difficult.  Mostly, you are alone with your own breathing, your own thoughts.  You breathe in…you breathe out…

When you break the surface of the water, you swim into one of the hugest displays of God’s awesomeness that you can imagine.  Words, nor pictures, can really describe the experience.  It’s a whole other world that you aren’t REALLY a part of.  It’s the closest thing, that I can imagine, to visiting another planet.  You’re a visitor in an awesome splendor that just…IS.  It’s not until you have experienced this for yourself that you really realize how small you are.  There is so much that is beyond your reach.  So much that you don’t see, don’t know, and never get to fully experience.

Diving really puts life into perspective…it’s not about ME.  I’m minuscule.  My problems are mine.  Other people are battling their own demons.  It’s about how I fit into the bigger picture.  It’s about what I can do with the piece of the world that I have been entrusted with.  How can I cope? How can I trust?  How can I love?  What can I do? …

 

Psalm 8:3-4New International Version (NIV)

³ When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?

 

It’s about making ripples on the surface of the water as I faithfully trust, jump in (feet first or with a rolling backflip off the side of the boat), and make changes in my life that can spread, grow, and positively impact those around me.