Drought

We just came back from a 6-day vacation with my side of the family to Sevierville, TN (just outside of Gatlinburg) and concluded in Atlanta for my 10 year high school reunion and visiting more family and friends. (Thus, the hiatus from blogging; look for updates on this past week soon). Today was to be a day to clean up, settle in, do the mounds of laundry that had accumulated, clean Levi's bottles from the road trip, etc. However, at about 11 am today, I found that the washer wouldn't start. Neither would the kitchen sink faucet. Nor the toilet. After calling the water company, it turns out there was a fire nearby and resulting water-main break leaving our neighborhood without water for at least 8 hours. I wish I didn't discover this with my hands covered in food, having to use a water bottle to clean off.

This home-drought got me thinking about a few things. It actually reminded me of an occasional recurrent nightmare I had as a child of the exact thing I was living out--no water to the home. Funny that as a child I dreamt of this. I started realizing a lot of my day revolves around or involves water. I realized I was not about to go for a walk today in the 90-degree weather without a shower to follow, so no exercise today. I was glad to have hand-sanitizer available to use after changing Levi's diapers. I couldn't sterilize Levi's pacis and bottles. I couldn't clean the dirty dishes or countertop. I was thankful to have bottled water on hand to quench my thirst. I had to pick which one toilet to use and hope that the visits would be sort and no long stays, if you know what I mean.

Although our bodies are made up of 2/3 of water, we would only be able to survive 7-9 days without water (if you are healthy and in the shade). Actually, 7 days seems like a long time--I don't think things would be very pleasant after the first 24 hours. Why is it during a storm people rush to the grocery store to buy milk and bread? Why not bottled water? Actually, my family in preparing for the potential Y2K scare, not knowing what technologies could go wrong, including the water company, stored 4 to 5 large drums of water in our basement. As we all know, nothing went wrong, but I think it was definitely a smart thing to prepare for.

Out of His Wisdom, Jesus described Himself as being the source of Living Water, eternal and ultimately thirst-quenching, knowing how much we depend on water, wanting us to see that our Soul cannot live without Him. I am glad to have been reminded of this truth today.

These are just some random thoughts from a upper-middle class person who takes water for granted on a day-to-day basis knowing full-well that my inconveniences today are nothing in comparison for the search for water, even clean water, that many all over the world encounter . . . Meanwhile I am wishing I took a shower earlier this morning.