A Journey

Have you ever noticed that folks in the bible are thirsty all the time? Or so it would seem as big things are always happening at the well. Jacob met Rachel by a well and Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.

The simplest explanation for all this is hanging out at the watering hole is that these people lived in the desert; where else would you find them? I traveled to the Holy Land last winter and witnessed the desperate scarcity of water. When Isaiah called the land around Jerusalem the wilderness, he wasn’t kidding. It is wild. And unforgiving.

But there is more to this well image, I think. God wants to remind us of our deep need for him. As unrelenting as thirst in the desert. Unquenchable except by God alone. Have you felt this? I felt it all my life; which is a hard thing for a kid growing up in a family that is not “churchified.”

I remember my mom making several attempts to get my five siblings and me to Sunday school and my dad to church. She met with resistance of biblical proportions from all parties involved. She never tried again. Church became taboo. Something that people with a lot on their consciences did. Or people who didn’t believe in Science, which, in our house, ruled.

Somehow I’d gotten an old but beautifully illustrated children’s book of bible stories. I hid at night beneath the covers to read it. I got as far as Cain and Abel and decided this was no book for a little girl to read by herself in the dark.

As a young teenager I babysat for a Lutheran minister down the street. The family kept a framed copy of The Lord’s Prayer on an end table in their living room. I decided to memorize the whole prayer, one stanza a week. I was thirsty.

I went to church with a friend once when I was in high school. I sat in the pew by myself as everyone took communion because I hadn’t been baptized.

One Christmas Eve my younger brother and I decided we wanted to go to a midnight service. By this time I was old enough to drive. I had never spent Christmas Day or Christmas Eve in a church. Imagine the thirst.

My brother and I didn’t know where to go. We only knew we wanted an old church with candlelight and a big choir and traditional hymns so we headed downtown. We slid inside a beautiful limestone church with stained glass windows just as the service was beginning. It was everything I’d imagined. The closing hymn, was Silent Night and everything really did seem calm and bright there in the candlelight as the hour approached midnight on my first Christmas Eve in a place of worship.

Years, as they say, passed. You can mask thirst but you don’t really quench it. It would be years before I thought about church again.
My husband and I went looking for a church after our daughter was born. We wanted a church in the city. We found a beautiful, welcoming one; limestone with stained glass windows. It was only when the choir and the congregation began singing Silent Night together as our first Christmas Eve service there came to a close that I realize I’d found my way back home.

I was baptized at the same time as my daughter.

A few years back I spoke to a man of deep faith. He told me he’d just met a man who had a tattoo of Jesus on his arm with the words: Isaiah 53 written beneath. I woke up in the middle of the night wondering what Isaiah 53 said and couldn’t fall back to sleep.
I went to the bookshelf, took out a bible and opened it. I looked down, prepared to start turning the pages and noticed it had fallen open to Isaiah 53. The next morning I asked my kids what they thought about this. My son’s answer: “I think God wants you to read Isaiah 53.”

I’d write it here for you now, but I thought it would be more fun for you to look it up yourself. Hint: it’s one important prophesy.

I remember this happened sometime in the fall.

At our church third graders get their first bibles on Mother’s Day. It’s very emotional. The Cherub Choir sings. They look like little angels. My son was a third grader this particular year. He got up in front of the whole church...can’t you just picture him in his little tie... and proudly got his bible. On the way home he said, “Mom, guess what verse I’m going to read out of my new bible first?” “The Christmas story from Luke?” I guessed. “No,” he said, “Isaiah 53.”

You know what they say we don’t find God; God finds us. And knows when we are desperately thirsty.

How did God find you? Do you have a faith story you want to share?