Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: SPRING (09/03/20)
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TITLE: Looking Back | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marilyn Borga
09/09/20 -
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I imagine my mother as a young girl with her dark braided hair, long flower-printed cotton dress, and brown high-top buttoned shoes. I see her step over the threshold, carrying a crock of freshly-churned butter. She stoops to set the crock in the low narrow trough that runs from the inlet pipe, across the width of one wall, and out the floor drain that empties into the nearby pond. The constant flow of cool water will keep the butter set until the man from the cheese house comes to collect it, along with the day’s milking.
It will be several years before electricity is brought to the valley. For now, the spring house still serves as a means of refrigeration and food storage on the farm. My mother reaches for the tin cup that hangs from a hook on the wall and fills it with the sweet spring water. She drinks deeply of the pure, life-sustaining liquid.
With rainfall unpredictable, a reliable, strong-flowing source of spring water meant survival in this land of fertile valley fields and gentle grassy hills. The natural flow from the underground aquifer never failed my grandparents, even in times of drought. Hard times would come and money would be scarce during the Great Depression, but that faithful spring flowing from the hillside guaranteed that the family and livestock would never suffer from thirst. There would always be water enough for the garden and for bathing away the dust and grime of farm labor.
My reverie into the past skips forward a generation. Now I picture my child-self strolling across the grass in my grandparent’s yard to the slope where the overflow from the pond pours noisily into a gallon-sized concrete basin. I perform the ritual of running my fingers through the refreshing flow and rejoice in hearing its melodious song as the water tumbles down the drainpipe and out of sight. The water sinks, following its deep, mysterious underground path, purifying itself until it eventually finds its destined spot far away, to bubble forth onto the land surface once again. The cycle that God created from the beginning of time continues to gift his creation.
When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, he alluded to the gift of God, the Spirit, as living water. If she would but ask, he would give her this water that would forever quench her emotional and spiritual thirst. She would receive salvation and forgiveness for her sins. Their odd exchange convinced her that she had encountered Christ, the Messiah. She ran to the city to reveal what she had heard, and many more souls received the gift of eternal life.
Our Creator constantly guides us and sees to our physical needs. He led my ancestors to a place where, with hard work and perseverance, they were able to live humbly, in peace and abundance. That natural source of fresh, pure water on the land was symbolic of the blessings our family enjoyed for generations. But he cares for our eternal needs as well. His greatest gift is the living water he offers to all, which flows freely from redeemed hearts, bringing life and healing to a dark and broken world.
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Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4: 13-14 (NKJV)
On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” John 7: 37-38 (NKJV)
The LORD will guide you continually,
And satisfy your soul in drought,
And strengthen your bones;
You shall be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Isaiah 58:11 (NKJV)
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