If you are keeping up with world news at the moment, you are seeing live footage of Egypt. This country of mostly dry, arid desert claims thousands of years in its history, the majority of which has been dependent upon its river. Flying into this ancient country, one is struck by the monotone of the landscape: brown, brown, and more brown as far as you can see in any direction. EXCEPT, that is, for the rather narrow strip of green vegetation, which borders the Nile on both sides of its banks for the entire length of the country. It is a visually arresting picture of what sustenance water provides and maintains.
Although age brings with it a few (??!) unfavorable features, (such as losing my reading glasses every five minutes and not being able to see any longer without them!), it does convey wisdom through learned experiences. (Purchase 10 pair of glasses & scatter them through the house!). Often in the past, I have foolishly set off on a bike ride, or begun a hike, without an ample water supply. Not very wise, and if you’ve ever been without water, you know the kind of parched dehydration that unpleasantly occurs. Similar to a desert, our bodies can barely support life when encountering a prolonged lack of hydration and begins to shut-down. This relates into fatigue, low blood pressure, dizziness, severe muscle weakness and finally, loss of consciousness. Personally, experiencing the less serious side effects made enough of an impression, that good judgment kicked in and I learned to carry more than enough water.
Interferon treatment requires a vast fluid intake. The liquids drive a chemical cycle that nourishes our bodies’ cells and provides structure, stability and function. (called Krebs cycle for the medically astute!) During the infusion stage, this meant a couple of hour-long saline bags dripping into my veins. Promising to hydrate, I was mercifully allowed to delete one of the bags, and instead began to tackle drinking 120 oz of liquid a day. (Too bad half of it can’t be chocolate milk shakes!) I continue that regimen, trusting its essential necessity.
I believe God takes everyone He loves through a desert, as it becomes a window into the heart of the Almighty Father. The best gift of being in the parched, still air of such a wilderness is the actual presence of the loving source of Life. In the midst of wandering through hours & days of the reality of our circumstances, we find there is only one hope on which we can depend.
I understand why David writes in Psalms, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” On the days of feeling the consequences of this treatment, I thirst for, and gulp….not sip that reliance. The countless learned experiences bring a tried and true comprehension that God meets me head on in this journey and brings an unwavering wisdom. I am assured of Jesus’ words: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink,” (John 7:37) yet He is also alluding to the image of Wisdom in Proverbs, calling out, inviting all mankind to come and drink. Here the Son is repeating the offer of the Father, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters,” (Isa 55:1) and He fulfills the role of God, who “will guide us and lead us beside springs of water (Isa 49:10).
When Jesus met (by design) the Samaritan woman at the well, (John 4) she was astonished that a Jewish man would speak to such a shamed woman as herself. Here was a man who knew her situation and amazingly not only spoke to her, but offered her “living water.” She, like so many of us, was looking for the bucket that He would provide, but Jesus explains, “Everyone who drinks of this water, (from the well) shall thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water gushing up into eternal life.”
In the confines of the day to day journey of cancer treatment, there are many things for which I thirst, but they fall to the wayside like an empty bucket that is not essential for sustenance, stability and function. The water I drink daily might replenish what my body requires physically, but the “living water” supplies a deeper, more fulfilling necessity: the all powerful God pursues me at the well in this desert time, supplying all that I need, and quenches any desire for more. As He allows me this glimpse into His heart, the only craving I have is to deepen the wisdom He brings.
The endearing faces of family and friends, and the prayers that carry such support and care supply the blessing of “knowing my cup surely overflows.” I am so vastly grateful for the abundant kindnesses, concern, love & prayers that flow this way.
