Liquid Ice

The icy water flowed over my head, weighed down my hair, and successfully gave me a royal neck ache. Briefly I questioned why my head was hovering over this big sink in the laundry room of Bethany Hall—when I remembered: It was Sunday morning, 6º F outside, and the hot water that had mysteriously quit Friday night still remained conspicuously absent from our dorm pipes. Why did the hot water have to be out today of all days?

This current attempt at hair washing had become a desperate last resort when I realized I had two options: 1) not wash my hair and suffer the embarrassment of church attendees distractedly wondering how long it had been since I’d washed my hair <painful answer: a week>, or 2) wash my hair and be able to focus on the sermon knowing that everyone was doing the same while blissfully ignorant that they could have witnessed a wild Laurie morning.

My eyes were squeezed shut when both my head and I agreed that we couldn’t handle this liquid ice for another moment. My skull had approached that painful stage called “nearly numb” that comes right before it shuts down. This feels worse than the icy mountain streams of Yosemite that we swam in years ago!

With a few numb handed twists the faucet was silenced and I stood there, my hair dripping over my face, trying to voice my agonized gasps of pain while the obnoxious THUMP, CLUNK, THURNK, of the malfunctioning middle dryer filled the room. Why, oh why couldn’t the hot water just miraculously turn on?

Back in my room, with my hand thawing around my regular morning cup of tea, I felt my body relax as I pulled out my Bible and a little notebook titled: “Journal of Daily Thanksgiving to God.”

It was something I’d started two years ago when I realized how little I thank God for the every day things of life: Thank You Lord for this new day! Thank you Jehovah-rapha for no headache today! Thank you—

As I thought through the little and big things of my life that I could write down, my grudging heart realized how much I had that I was not crediting to the generous hand of my God. I mean, the hot water goes out and I take on the attitude of a martyr!

I don’t live in a country where drinking water is the murky color of mud, nor does it takes two hours to fetch, and our land is not experiencing a drought.

What if I didn’t have water at all? –No clean dishes, no clean clothes, no tea, no running toilets, no showers...

I have so much and yet when one little part of it takes a vacation, I resort to grumbling in my heart. I forget that my God is the God of Living Water that never stops flowing—my only source of true joy that never should grow cold.

Thank You God for running water!

"...but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him
will never be thirsty again.
The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water
welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14