Eight days, 12 hours and 14 minutes to go – give or take a minute – not that I’m counting, mind you.  What am I talking about?  Well, let me tell you.  In just over a week, I will be doing the Busselton Jetty Swim.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the whole swimming scene, that means that in just over seven days I will be swimming around the Busselton Jetty, south of Perth, Western Australia.  Considering that it is a very long jetty and considering that I have never swum around it before and considering that it’s in the ocean and considering that sharks live in the ocean, I’m a little anxious!

In the past few weeks I’ve found myself wondering, on more than one occasion, why I am doing such a thing.  I mean there are a million and one ways to stay fit.  What was I thinking by agreeing to such insanity?  It’s a really long jetty and it’s in the ocean and that’s where sharks live and sharks sometimes eat people (or at the very least relieve them of a limb or two) and is it really possible for me to swim 3.6 kms without sinking?  Do you know what is even crazier than this?  Two weeks after swimming around the Busselton Jetty, I will be swimming to Rottnest Island.  Being in a team of four notwithstanding, once again it’s in the ocean and sharks live in the ocean and sometimes sharks eat people.

Now as you can probably tell I’m a little paranoid about sharks.  If I could choose the way I was to depart this world, I wouldn’t choose it to be in the jaws of a shark.  So if I have this fear, then why am I doing these things?  Well, you can’t let fear, especially relatively irrational fear, stop you from doing things, can you?

Last Saturday morning I was swimming down at Cottesloe Beach with the three other members of my Rottnest team.  It was a lovely morning and the water was beautiful and flat but for some odd reason there was hardly another person in the water.  Usually on a Saturday morning, Cottesloe is a hive of activity but maybe, because of the Australia Day celebrations the day before, people decided to stay at home and recover rather than go swimming.  Now you might think that having the beach almost to ourselves was a good thing but in my mind this was not a good thing at all.  Less people in the water means less choice for the sharks, which means the likelihood of me getting munched is greatly increased.  I know this isn’t rational but as I’m swimming along I just can’t shake the image of a shark swimming straight for me.  But then I started thinking, this is ridiculous.  I can’t keep this fear up.  I can either enjoy the swim and relax or I can continue paddling along with this fear hanging over me.  I would much rather relax and enjoy it.

The thought I applied to challenge this fear (and I think it can be applied to any fear) is as follows.  God is in control and if he wants me to depart this mortal coil by way of a great white, well then there is nothing I can do about that.  The thing is that I really don’t think that is the plan that God has for me.  I think that sometimes we, and particularly I, forget that God is in control of everything.  There is nothing, not even Jaws, that God doesn’t have control over.  I am completely safe, anywhere, in Him.

Now I wish it was as easy as that – that I have this mini epiphany and then all of the fear miraculously vanishes.  Life’s not like that is it?  I think what makes the difference (and once again I think this applies to any fear) is that you can’t wait for the fear to go before you do something.  Regardless of the fear, I will keep swimming and I will keep telling myself that God is in control and if I keep on doing that then eventually the fear will go.  But I know that the fear won’t go if I don’t get in the water and there will be so much that I will miss out on.  That’s the worst part about fear – the things you miss out on because of it.  The experiences, the lessons, the growth, the achievements – all of these things stay unrealised if we give in to fear.

So there you have it, as someone once said, feel the fear and do it anyway.  If there is something that you really want to do and you’re letting fear get in the way, then make the decision to do it anyway.  Do it afraid.  You won’t regret it.  After all, in line with the theme for the month, this is One Inspiring Summer, so what better time.

I’ll let you know how the swims go next month (assuming of course I haven’t become fish food…………….)
Dale