I imagine myself treading water. I am alone in the middle of the vast ocean of life. It surrounds me on all sides, as far as I can see. My struggling, panicked body has deep scars running down both sides from where life has cut me, from where I have cut myself.  

I finally lose the fight, let go, and slip into the wet darkness. But then, to my astonishment and extraordinary delight, my ugly scars immediately transform into gills that allow me breathe underwater.

“I feel like one who has had his violin out of tune with the orchestra and at last is in harmony with the music of the universe.” ~Frank Laubach, Letters By a Modern Mystic

This is what it feels like to swim free, no longer afraid of drowning. 

Grace gives us gills, transforming our wounds into windows for love – and the love gives us life.

“Suffering opens the channel through which all of Life flows and by which all creation breathes, and I still do not know why. Yet it is somehow beautiful, even if it is a sad and tragic beauty.” ~Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water