Breathless and Beaming

I've been thinking lately of all those women in the Bible, carrying their water jars to the well day after day. It's heavy, this weight of need. It has to be balanced or else it will break. But then what happens once they reach the well? I think of Rebekah, discovering the treasure of someone who loves her. I think of her running home, breathless and beaming, to her family. And I think of Rachel, her head probably all a-swirl, but don't you think she took off running just as fast as Rebekah? Did they drop their jars? And what about the blessed Samaritan woman… oh, she had traversed five long deserts and her jar was empty. And when she came to the well that day, she found all the Love in the world there waiting for her... all three women came empty and left full.

I sat on a bench one day this week after the rain. And that mysterious stuff they all found filled me too...it was something like that magic air that grasps with dewy hands the fringe of a summer storm. So full of water, but yet so soft and cool. It's the air I've always wanted to bottle and carry with me, but the easy and light kind. And oh, I drank deeply of that post-rain air.

One of the most beautiful and fortifying things I’ve learned this year was from Hannah Brencher’s blog. She encouraged me over a cup of coffee called “Joy,” reminding me how we don’t have to give in to the feelings our circumstances want us to feel. And I learned that even when joy seems to be unsteady, we can cling fast to it, as though it were a strong pair of hands reaching out for us, and our joy will become steady again. And I took that to also mean that even when faith seems to be failing, we can hold on to it despite our feelings and our faith will fly on heavenly heights. Steadiness amid the unsteady. Flying amid the failing. Like the women at the well, I always thought we had to balance the weight of need to keep it from breaking. But somehow, maybe true balance can only be found once our need breaks us. Maybe our jars are meant to break before all that water can come rushing in to fill them. Miracles indeed.

That night, even after the fullness I felt on the bench, I caught myself in the tangled-web of brooding. It comes over me like a spell sometimes. I feel forsaken in that web. I feel like there’s some cosmic problem that needs to be worked out, some answer to be found, and I go in circles and circles and dizzy myself into exhaustion. The problem is never solved and the answer is never found. But that night, I gathered up that heavy jar in my arms. And I ran hurriedly to God, dropping it at his feet. It shattered, and He started to pick up the pieces, but in my embarrassment I ran back to my dark little corner, drew my legs to myself and rocked back and forth like a child in a storm. But then I saw Him, coming to me, one hand holding all my broken pieces, and the other reaching out to me. A smile was on His face and His head tilted just so, as though He were saying "come now, you know you can't get away with that here." And I took His hand and He led me to his sanctuary again and I sat in front of him, wide eyed and ready, and He asked me to hold out my hand.

And He traced my palm like my grandma used to do when I was a child in church. Except it wasn't a pew pencil this time, and there was no need to quiet little Margaret down. My Lord was tracing my palm with his finger. I was quiet. Breathless. What would He draw? Starting in the middle, He drew lines outward. And all of a sudden, that was my compass. I could run anywhere in his pastures I pleased. I just had to pick a direction, pick one of the many lines He had drawn. And somehow, I remember, I went to the left and just ran and ran and He laughed with me. I heard Him roaring with delight every time my foot hit the ground. And when I grew full after all that bounding joy, He took my hands and led me along the river. And then I ran home, breathless and beaming to my family. I had met my Lover and He had touched my soul at last.

“Where’s your jar?” they asked me.

I couldn’t remember. Maybe I dropped it? Maybe I left it at the well...It was all such a blur. Like some far away dream. “But let me tell you about Him!” I exclaimed. “It’s like I can still feel Him. And His laughter, oh it all makes me want to burst inside!”

And after my story, I told all my sisters, “Listen, you don't have to shrink back into your corner after you let Him have your thoughts. You can run free again! And look for angels again. And leap and bound and laugh and shout and splash and spread your arms wide and hug the world...His world, His kingdom place. Hug all that love. You're not meant to be left with only yourself. He gives you the whole, stretching land of Canaan, all those wild pastures of his presence. He opens all of that up before your eyes and you can open your arms as wide as you can and draw it all inside of you. Again and again.”