I have been drowning lately. It’s the only way I can think to describe it. All my thoughts are muffled by deep water. I can’t even hear them let alone form them into coherence. I think about writing a post out and there is nothing. I am so burdened with so many things and none of them are clear. The only thing that has been clear for me lately is water. The notion of, presence, allegory, simile, cleansing, living of water in my life, how it has actually been a huge part of my life without realizing it. How I have lived beside it, conquered it, been defeated by it, swam with it, fought against it, in all its forms and delivery systems.
I am a girl of the water. I have been drawn to the water my whole life and I never knew it until a week ago when I came across something someone else had written about her connection to water and I thought, “that’s me!” and I shed a few tears.
My dad made sure we knew how to swim, buying an above ground pool to help us learn. I lived in that pool in the summer and he called me a little fish. We took more than one family trip to the Oregon coast and I could sit and listen to the waves crashing for hours. I could never get enough. It’s constant and relentless.
Some people love the shelter of the mountains, others the sweeping vastness of the prairies. Me, I love the water. The oceans primarily but, I’ll take rivers and lakes too. It represents everything there is about life. You can have fun with it and you can be swallowed up by it. This girl has lived on the waters edge most of her life. Cautiously dipping her toe in to check the temperature, refusing to dive from anything higher than the edge of a pool.
Growing up in Vancouver you are surrounded by it. The multiple arms of the Fraser River make you feel like you’re on an island. The water permeates the air, the mood of the city and I didn’t realize how much it is a part of me until just recently. I am aching, longing to be near the water again. The ache and longing is so deep that I can’t even think of anything to liken it to other than how your soul searches for the Lord in the midst of troubles.
And that is where the water is so much of me, so much more than just water, so much more than just waves crashing.
It is life and breath in me, it is the living water and I have never really known the thirst for it until I moved here. Back home it was all around me and I took it for granted. Here I have to search for it, I have to get on my knees and dig for it. And the harder I search the more obstacles get in my way. I want to swim in His ocean of grace but for some reason it is just miles and miles of dry land all around me.
“It’s your love that we adore, it’s like a sea without a shore” -David Crowder
“Here is love, vast as the ocean” - William Rees
But somehow, I am stuck on dry land.
I am in a wilderness, dry and barren, and there is a battle within me, for me and I am overwhelmed by it. I need the Lord to show up. I need the living water to refresh my soul because I am not prepared for what I feel is ahead of me. My daily prayer has been for a refreshing, a renewal, a rediscovery by the living water.
Holy Spirit, by your power, lead me to the living water, its endless rushing, its eternal quenching, its perfect cleansing, because I have become stagnant, thirsty and dirty. Fill my cup Lord. Holy Spirit lift me with waves of grace, pour your joy and peace upon me. Anoint my head with your love and power. Bring me to your water, oh Lord.
