First Drink of Water after Eight Days

Have you ever been really, really thirsty? I remember once when I had some stomach thing, you know, we've all had them, the kind that whatever you put in comes up or down almost as fast and certainly more violently than the way it went in. I remember probably needing to be in the hospital, after not being able to keep anything down for two days, and my wife brought me a cold glass of water. Water, that simple, unobtrusive element that sustains life, never tasted so good.

So, I could not believe it when I was on the phone with my sister, who has had all but 23 inches of her small intestine removed from her body through no choice of her own, tells me that she had just had her first drink of water in eight days.

Duck took her first drink of water after eight days today. I just happened to be on the phone with her, and she said, "hold on", well since I was driving this was no small task, but to what she pleasured my eardrums with was something quite...well. I heard, gasps, chokes, grunts, and then something that sounded like...well, it's hard to explain, that "ahhhh" sound when something totally satisfies you.

I said, "Duck, what's going on over there?" She said, "well, I'm having to take my medicine and it's really nasty morphine that I have to stick under my tongue, it is the most disgusting tasting thing ever, and I have to wash it down." So, I thought, I was hearing the nasty medicine, in the mouth (gag), under the tongue (grunt), water (ahhhh), medicine going down (choke), more water (ahhh, more choke), more water (gulp), then satisfaction (more ahhhh's).

"Al, she said, that was my first drink of water since I've been in here. Jeff eats in front of me all the time, it doesn't bother me, but when he has that large, delicious looking cup of Coca-Cola, I start to salivate like the dog of Pavlov."

I think of a story from the Bible (John 4), where Jesus meets a woman who was at the well to acquire water. Jesus asks her for a drink. She looks at Jesus, doesn't give him a drink, suspiciously and without reservation, either through inquiry or chastisement says, "why do you ask me for a drink?" He gently then tells her that if she only knew who had asked her for a drink, she would've immediately asked Him for "living water."

Jesus then tells her that whoever drinks His water, His life, they will never thirst again, and "it will be a fountain of water springing up to everlasting life."

So, when I think of Audrea who hadn't had a drink in 8 days, suddenly getting to drink water, knowing that she, and you, and I will all thirst again. But Jesus Christ, has the ability to quench the thrist of our souls so that we will say "ahhhh" in him. It might take some grunting, gasping, choking, and gaping, but in the end, Jesus promises to those He gives His water/His life, they will continually say, "ahhhh".

As, you drink this day, this week, think of a young 31-year old mother, who laid in a hospital bed for 8 days before she sipped down some of the sweetest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted.

What do you take for granted? What fills your life?

Alex V