Good morning. After my meditation time and prayer, I think on yesterday and find myself embarrassed although you all told me not to be embarrassed. It is simply that at the moment I was caught off-guard and vulnerable. That made me afraid.

I’m choosing love again today. Not a love that harms another, but one that brings water to dry places. One of the reasons I love the photo I took in a dry Oklahoma forest is because of a memory of shared water.

Oklahoma Forest 2001

In seminary, we were assigned different things to do to challenge ourselves to grow. I knew I wasn’t good with home visits, always too nervous being in someone’s home even when invited. I was assigned a 97-year-old woman.

 

On a trip to her sister, she wanted to stop and get water at this church that had an outdoor faucet like this. It was in Columbia, SC and wicked hot. I had a truck at the time, but no cup. There were construction workers there. She rolled down the water and asked the sweating dirty men to bring her a cup of water.

 

One man put his paint down fast and ran over to a styrofoam cup I had not seen. He had a chaw of tobacco in his mouth so I hoped that it was his coffee he poured out. He thoroughly washed out the cup and came over to the truck. With the gentleness of Jesus offering water to a child, he offered Miss Neva a cup of water in a dry place.

 

It is one of my most beautiful memories.

 

“… and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” 

~Matthew 10:42 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

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