Living Water

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." - C.S. Lewis

On Thursday nights I attend/help my mom out with a high school girls Bible study for my sister and her friends. We're doing Beth Moore's Breaking Free, one that I'd done a few years ago. There's "homework" every day, and then during our meeting we discuss what we've learned and then watch a teaching by Beth. It's a really good study, focusing on issues like actually knowing and enjoying God, finding satisfaction in Him, having our broken hearts healed, and breaking off generational sins and letting those idols stop with us. It applies Scripture to everything.

Last Thursday, Beth's teaching was about the Samaritan woman at the well --- a familiar story, but she spoke about it in a way that I'd never thought of before. She points out how Jesus always gave his name in context of the need. When the people were hungry, he fed the 5,000 and then said, "I am the bread of life." When Lazarus was dead and he was comforting the sisters, he said, "I am the resurrection and the life." And when the woman at the well came to draw water, he explained how if she knew who he was, she could've asked him for "living water" and never thirst again.

Beth found it interesting that he uses water as his metaphor. In the video she did an illustration with two vases: one she filled with things like Cheetos, toy cars, money, a picture, a little scarf, all to represent the things we try to stuff into our lives to satisfy us and make us happy. When it's all said and done, though, as she held up the vase, it's obvious that there are still empty spaces.

The second vase she simply fills with water. She points out how water is the only substance that will fill every crevice and space, how it reaches to the farthest place and can get into the tiniest hole. In the context of the Samaritan woman, broken as she was with five failed marriages, always searching to have her heart filled, Jesus was showing her exactly what she needed: Himself.

This lesson struck me so hard. How many times do I search for things other than Jesus to satisfy me? Jeremiah 2 gives God's lament about how we His people "have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."

What am I stuffing into the vase of my soul? What are you trying to shove into yours?

Entertainment?
A relationship?
Money, material things?
Your reputation?
Pornography?
A job?
Food?

What would it look like to forsake those broken cisterns and return to the Lord wholeheartedly? How many other lives would be changed in the process?

I pray that we all will have the courage to smash our idols and go back to the River of life, because He is the water that is truly alive and truly able to sastify our thirst. We can try everything else on this earth, but I know at my core that we were made for Jesus Christ and Him alone. I'm grateful that nothing else satisfies.

Dear You

Dear boy,
I hope you live your life like one. I hope you love adventure and love to get dirty, to make things explode and to take the more dangerous road, to explore, to risk and learn from failure, to risk and taste success. Let your heart be colored by discovery.

Dear girl,
I hope you live your life like one. I hope you get dressed up and all pretty-fied sometimes, and other times you'll take that dangerous, dirt-covered road with the boys. I hope you realize your own worth and recognize that simply because you're a woman, you are truly beautiful. Don't be afraid to be you. Let your heart be colored by a genuine radiance.

Dear warrior,
I hope you live your life like one. I hope you fight for those you love, persist despite the weariness, and don’t take your times of rest for granted. I hope you hate injustice. I hope you carry yourself with honor and yet know the meaning of true humility, realizing that meekness does not equal weakness, but rather a strength unknown to most. Let your heart be colored by courage.

Dear sinner,
I hope you live your life like one forgiven. I hope you extend grace to others, knowing that you don’t deserve the grace they extend to you. I hope you can let go of your pride and see yourself through the Lord’s eyes – as one worth nothing and yet as one worth dying for. I hope you find the secret of living life on your knees. Let your heart be colored by truth and second chances.

Dear friend,
I hope you live your life like one. I hope you know the value of honesty and trust. I hope your laughter outweighs your arguments or petty issues, and that you have open eyes and an open heart to other people’s pain. I hope you pick up your phone in the middle of the night. I hope you listen more than you talk and give more than you take. Let your heart be colored by the test of time and shared memories.

Dear lover,
I hope you live your life like one. I hope you share your deepest fears and biggest dreams without fear of being betrayed or not being good enough. I hope you give all of you and leave your hesitations behind. I hope you can trust, let go of hurt, and can start new each day. Let your heart be colored by forgiveness.

Dear you,
I hope you live your life.

A Little Q and A

For the past few nights, my sister has come into my room right when I'm about to go to bed. She flings herself on my bed, takes up all of the room, and then drinks my water from the cup that sits on my nightstand. As I'm typing this, she found a letter on my floor, pulled it out of the envelope, and started reading it. I stared at her and said, "Um, yeah, what are you doing? You don't just read people's mail."

So tonight I decided to write an entry interviewing her. This is dedicated to little sisters everywhere.

Q and A with Caylie:

Me: What do you like about being the little sister?
Cay: I guess you could say I get attention. And for some weird reason, I like how Brandon (older brother) manipulates me, because I'm smaller than him.

Me: What do you dislike?
Cay: You get blamed for everything, and you're the only one at home, so you have to do everyone else's chores, because everyone else is working and they have a car.

Me: What is one of your best memories with your older brother or sister?
Cay: When me and Brandon were walking through the woods and he started making this nasty bird call, and I got it on tape, and it was hilarious. Also, when I'm in your room rolling on the floor laughing uncontrollably for no reason while you're trying to go to bed.

Me: What is some advice you would give to older brothers and sisters concerning how they relate to their younger siblings?
Cay: We look up to you more than you think we do. We're bothering you because we want your approval. Maybe our actions are obnoxious or annoying, but it's really because we want to be around you and be like you (depending on the age difference, of course.) So, have patience with us and realize that we watch everything you do.

Me: If you had a little sister 7 years younger than you, how would your view of older sisters change, if at all?
Cay: Well, I wouldn't want to be you, because I'm obviously obnoxious. I would have to give her attention, while I'm actually the one needing attention from you. So, no.

Me: No, what?
Cay: Just no. Eww. That's disgusting. That's never happening. I'm not even going to hypothetically picture that happening. No.

Me: What's your earliest memory of your brother/sister?
Cay: I just remember in Virginia, when I would follow you and Brandon and the neighbor kids around, playing on the trampoline and rope swing. Also, sledding down the front yard.

Me: You just got water on my bed. And I'm going to bed now.

Colors

I'm a list girl, so here's one I'd like to express.

Things That Color My World (in no particular order):

music, train rides, bus rides through parts of a city I've never seen before, God and his steady love, kids, the logic of kids, postcards, emails, lists, lists from friends, reading rock-your-world verses that change you from that moment on, making adventures out of the mundane, traveling, going home, honest talks, meeting new people who turn out to be amazing, cold milk, experimental cooking, the harmony part, innocence, getting under warm blankets when the room is freezing, learning from mistakes, watermelon in the summer, finishing projects, reading a book so captivating that you lose track of time, taking pictures of random and beautiful things/people/places, tackling my sister, riding a bike, being spared from disaster and finding out about it later, wearing jackets in autumn, playing with people's hair, learning about other cultures, Nutella, falling asleep listening to rain and/or thunder, acoustic guitars, dreaming about those I miss, the second day of school, swing sets, brand new notebooks, truth, driving on the back roads, Disney princess blankets, lit fireplaces in the winter, people-watching, going out on the river/lake/bay/ocean, changing seasons, foreign languages, how every sunset and snowflake is different, free samples, standing right where the waves can just reach my toes, balconies, pineapple juice, the smell of new books/new shoes, words like posh and savvy, non-verbal communication, mercy, cats that sit on you, pretty names, laughing, good lyrics, field trips, mountains, having a part in changing the world, spaghetti, Hillsong, cutting words and pictures out of magazines to make your friend's birthday card, flowers and rain and the green of spring, a favorite worn-out pair of jeans, that moment right before you fall asleep, hoodies, lying on the ground looking at the stars, Text Twist, sledding, finding someone with common interests, Pixar movies, forests, every tree in the whole world actually, bookstores and libraries, singing in the shower, ping pong, snacks, sitting barefoot on a dock, Francine Rivers, writing that poem that says just what it needs to say, symphonies, hunting for incredible graffiti, waterfalls, full journals, BBC's Planet Earth, sincerity, finding an ordinary thing sacred, Reese's peanut butter cups, having a family that loves you, clothes right out of the dryer, rolling the windows down when you drive on a bridge, obeying the Lord, starting a new book, turning to the book's last page, closing the book and sitting lost in thought about it, ugly brown comfortable chairs, teaching 6 year-olds to play chess, answered prayers, Swedish fish, C.S. Lewis, pomegranates, ticket stubs, knowing that others are praying for you, and crayons, because I'm literal.

Honestly

Lately I've been thinking about what it means to speak the truth in love. I don't think that means to point out other people's shortcomings in a sweet tone of voice. Maybe someone asks my opinion and I actually give it instead of sugar-coating it or telling them what I think they wanted to hear. (Some of us give our opinions way too easily, even when they weren't asked for:) Or maybe I need to confront someone with a problem I have with them. I'm not the most confrontational type, but I'm getting better at speaking up when things need to be said. Still, I think it's easier to confront someone with truth than to have someone confront me with it.

The truth can hurt.

Ok, understatement.

The truth can shatter your whole world, take you from walking safe up on your palace walls to sitting among its rubble and covered in its dust, handfuls of it in your fists. But sitting there brings the realization that it can be rebuilt, that it's meant to be raised up again on the right foundation, Jesus Christ, who is the Truth himself. Like the difference between the houses built on rock and sand. Maybe that house built on sand needed to come down under winds of truth so it could be built again, this time on the rock.

So yeah, truth can hurt, but I love its freedom. Truth can expose, but it makes the darkness become light. Truth is never meant to cruelly humiliate but has love at its heart, desiring something better for us --- sincerity and purity, transparency and a free, true life, the way we were meant to live. Truth desires that we grow up, be set apart, and walk in righteousness before our God. Truth cleanses.

Oh that we would have the humility and maturity to hear truth when it's spoken to us...that we would have the courage to implement it into our lives and apply it to how we live. That's where growth happens and chains fall off. That's where lies are silenced and we learn what it means to walk as He walked. Then love can happen, because there can be no intimacy without honesty.

Glow Stick

When I was a little kid I went roller-skating at a skating rink, and I came home with one of those glow sticks that doesn't light up until you snap it. It lasts for a few hours, but after a while it loses its neon glow.

I didn't know this before I cracked it. So I'm in my living room with my lit-up glow stick, and my mom sees it. "Oh that's cool, Shan. Those last for a few hours, right?"

I freaked out. I seriously started crying (I'm laughing as I type this because it's so ridiculous) and lay on the couch, upset that the light wouldn't last. My mom tried to point out the logic of playing with the glow stick now before it stopped glowing, but my logic was, Why play with it if it's not going to last?

This wrong way of thinking isn't unique to the minds of kids. Yesterday I had the day off of work, the remnant of the Independence Day weekend. But it went by too fast, and I sat there thinking about how I seemed to be wasting my day off instead of enjoying it, focusing on how it was disappearing instead of actually living it out. All the things I wanted to do that day --- make a smoothie, go read my book in my favorite bookstore downtown, walk the bridge, walk the beach, drive somewhere, anywhere --- I only got to do one of them because I wasted a lot of time lamenting my lack of time.

That's when I remembered the glow stick. The ridiculousness is the same. Why do we do this? Miss out on now because we're consumed with how now becomes then? Life slips away when you try to cling to it. A life is made up of years, consisting of months, made up of weeks, made up of days, made up of hours....minutes....seconds....a moment. What would it look like to walk out that sadly cliched phrase, "Live life to the fullest?" What does that even mean?

For me, I think it means letting my yes be yes and my no be no. To be decisive, to quit analyzing every little thing and just go DO it. To actually finish the things I start. To trade worry, which is basically saying, "God, I don't trust you" for a confidence in Him, knowing that it's not by might, nor by power, but by His spirit. And to have the perspective that this moment is the only one of its kind, never to be repeated, and that I'm allowed to enjoy it, or learn from it, or plod through it with His guidance. Of course that moment won't last. This life isn't meant to! But it's certainly meant to be lived.

Change of Heart

There's a verse in Ecclesiastes 3 that says, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven..." and one of them states, "A time to keep silence, and a time to speak."

For me, it's time to speak.

Writing is a form of catharsis for me...it's how I process thoughts, feelings, life. I generally tend to be private with my words, though, mostly because I don't like to write fluff --- I have to write the truth, and I never really learned how to write truth without making it too personal or sharing too much.

I don't like to be the center of attention. Sometimes compliments make me uncomfortable. My point here is, for so long I would have something important to say but I'd hesitate to say it or write it because I didn't want feedback, positive or negative. I've cared for so long what people think; I've worried what kind of opinion of me my writing will form in other people's minds. I didn't want to be seen as immature, foolish, arrogant, attention-seeking, too spiritual, self-righteous...whatever else. So now I ask myself, is that what I think of others when they share something God is doing or saying in their lives? If not, why would I assume that's what others will think of me?

I know there's a balance here; some things are not meant to be shared.

But some are. And I've wrestled with excuses for a long time. Today I couldn't get this out of my head, probably because I watched a movie yesterday ("Akeelah and the Bee") and was struck by a quote in it by Marianne Williamson: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

Who am I to hide the gifts God has given me? Those gifts were never meant to bring glory to myself. They've always been for His sake.

So here begins my obedience, and there goes the fear. I will write heedless of what others deem true of me, because this has never been about me. I will write for the fame and glory of Jesus Christ, to be obedient when he wants me to share something, and perhaps to bring a little light, life, or love to other people.

Lord, give me wisdom on when to keep silent and when to speak.