Stay Thirsty

Growing up there were always chocolate bunnies on Easter and not the hollow ones that would seem so forlorn and empty when with one gleeful chomp we amputated the ears. We had solid chocolate! My mom was a child of the depression. She had known leanness, hollowness in oh so many ways and was determined that my sister, brother and I would know only fatness and solidness-the substance and not just the shadow.

My mom has been dead for nearly 4 years now, and she would be sad that as I approach my 59th birthday I feel so hollow. I read Psalm 63, “I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods…” NASB says “with marrow and fatness.” This verse comes after declarations of thirst and earnest seeking and I wonder what I am missing. I DO seek Him earnestly.

Indeed over the weekend, I read John 4 and saw myself as this woman come in the heat of the day to the well. I spoke her words, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” I heard in the words the cry of my own heart to have the hollow places, chiseled by loss, filled once and for all - to never again have to revisit the places of my pain or to do the hard work of finding water in the desert landscape of my loneliness.

I read Isaiah 12, “Therefore with joy will we draw water out of the well of salvation” and I realized there is no once and for all thirst quenching draught. I must come often to the well. I must meet Jesus in all my places of pain and disappointment and experience that because He is present at each one; there IS living water to be had there. My disappointments are His appointments, my pain and invitation to compassion and healing grace.

But first I have to realize, as that Samaritan woman did, that He sees me; He knows me. He is the only one who can fill the hollows of my soul. He is the substance and not the shadow. He is the real thing. My mom, my dad, my niece and my nephew stand before the throne sure of that reality. One day I will be there too. For now though I will draw water from the well of salvation. I will take the broken bread and poured out wine and let Him fill the hollows with His mercy and grace; and I will pour out what He pours in and this is the water cycle of life.

"...My souls thirsts for Thee and my flesh yearns for Thee in a dry and weary land where there is no water." (Psalm 63:1) In the words of a Dos Equis beer commercial, “Stay thirsty, friends.”