Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Childhood (09/03/09)
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TITLE: More, More! | Previous Challenge Entry
By Margaret Villanueva
09/05/09 -
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As I continue to water the lawn (really an excuse to be there with him and watch him play), he notices the hose as if for the first time. I can see the light in his eyes and the wheels turning as he sees the translucent silver stream hit the ground. What fun is a quiet pool when you have living water to play in?
“Mommy, splash me!” he cries.
Obligingly I turn the hose on him—a gentle stream, yet strong enough to feel rough and scratchy against his skin. He trumpets and laughs as the water soaks him afresh. I let the water play against his skin for a few minutes, and then I turn the stream away from the wading pool, back to the patch of lawn that is dry from the summer heat.
My son’s attention has left the wading pool. That living water against his skin has ignited a desire that will not be denied.
“More, Mommy, more!”
He leaps from the pool, runs across the lawn and we play together, mother and son, me providing the stream of living water and him jumping, leaping like a gazelle, playing hide and seek together with the water hose as the pursuer. That living water streaming from the hose is a prize that can’t be underestimated. Every so often, I turn the stream from him and water daisies, petunias, gardenia—keeping the delicate flowers alive in this desert summer. Every time his cry rings out—
“More, Mommy, more!”
My son David finally tires of the game, tires of the day, and curls up on his towel on the grass. He is almost asleep when I pick him up—still a tiny boy at the age of four. I dry him off, put fresh clothes on him, and gently carry him to his bed. He is asleep before his head hits the pillow.
My son safely asleep, I go to my bedroom and pick up my Bible and prayer journal. I leaf through to continue my Bible study. My eye falls on Luke 10:21. “At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.” Little children. David. My mind returns to my son and the water hose—living water—and see David running joyfully through the newly wet ground with no thought but to enjoy the cool water falling on him. I think of all the mercy and grace that have fallen on David and myself since my husband’s death. What beautiful streams of love have fallen on us, even when we were too full of grief and loss to even ask for help! I turn to my prayer journal and write words of thanksgiving, words that I have only recently become able to begin to write again. After years of grief, pain, loss, and unanswerable questions, I am finally able to begin to simply be grateful for the work of God’s hand in our lives. Then I seek within myself for the right words to say to express what I want from God in these days of peace following the years of loss. Once again I see David, pushing his way out of the pool toward me with only one thing on his mind. I write, prompted by the words that my son said to me, words that filled my heart to overflowing with love and gratefulness for the precious little life gifted me by God—“Living Water, fall on me again! I want more, more!”
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