Water Stories

Long years ago when I was making my way through grammar school, Sunday afternoons would often find us out in the country at the old home place where my Uncle Gene and his family lived.  For a boy who had never been on a real farm, it was a wonderful place.  There was a mule and chickens, a yard swept clean and unending space to run , and a bucket of water and a dipper on the front porch.  At our house in town you had to drink water from a faucet, but out in the country you drank water from the bucket with the long handled dipper used by everyone. 

 

When I retired just over five decades later and came to a farm, the first thing we did was dig a well.  To this day I know from how deep in the earth the water comes and always I am amazed that it is clear and good to taste without any kind of big city treatment.  Sometimes I think I must have lived like the city kid who always thought his food came from a can since I never thought much about water as I pulled the faucet handle and drank my fill.  Now I know that nothing is more precious and valuable to the life that is lived all around me. 

The Scripture is full of water stories.  There is a river in the Genesis Garden, a sea that rolled back for the Hebrews, a flood that required an Ark, and rain on Mt. Carmel.  John baptized folks in the Jordan River,  water was turned into wine, and a blind man washed his eyes to see.  The creative power of God brought water into being and the Creator then used it again and again for holy purposes.  Jesus even stood at an ancient well one day and spoke about being living water that gushes forth to give eternal life.  (John 4:14)  It does us well to pause in the moment of receiving and drinking water to give thanks to God for the gift that provides for our bodies and nurtures our souls.