Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Writing (01/11/07)
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TITLE: God's Watering Can | Previous Challenge Entry
By Eleanor Joyce
01/13/07 -
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Running full blast, life’s spigot fills my days with a torrent of thoughts, impressions, and observations. Gradually among the swirling currents, streaming words begin to line themselves up into sentences. Almost involuntarily then, rising to the top of the can, they spill out the “spout”, and into writing. Clarified and spaced out in neat rows, I can read, revisit, and process my thoughts in an orderly way.
It wasn’t a natural thing for me to share my written thoughts with others. Writing for an “audience” was something I stumbled into quite inadvertently, and with much hesitation.
For many months, the profile statement of my blog was Proverbs 11:25, one of my favorite verses. In the NIV it reads “He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” Interestingly, though, and in keeping with the watering can motif, the King James version reads “...He that watereth, shall be watered also himself.”
It is truly humbling to consider that God has, at times, used me as His watering can, to sprinkle drops of encouragement and nourishment at the feet of his people. After blogging for a few months, I was impressed one day by the words of 2 Corinthians 1, verses 3 and 4. In part they read “...The God of all comfort...comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” This was a new concept for me, sort of a light bulb moment! I realized that God didn’t comfort me just so that I would feel better, but so that I could share that same comfort with others. That is his plan and purpose for everyone, and in my case, words are the tools he has given me to do his work. He wants me to be a watering can, not a storage barrel.
I have a mental picture of a rustic enamel watering can. It is sitting on a flat rock at the edge of a gravel garden path. Although it’s a bit battered, with a few dents and scratches, it is clean, and filled with fresh water. The spout is not clogged with dirt and debris. It is a vessel ready to be used by the Master Gardener when and where he chooses.
As a writer, that is my highest aspiration; just to be a watering can for God. As he faithfully continues to refill and renew me, I want to share that same refreshment by trickling words of encouragement to any drooping, wilted plantings in my corner of his garden.
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Great writing. I loved your reference to Proverbs and how your piece validates it in a special way to the reader!