My heart has lain in a vast dry desert,
the hard, lifeless ground
parched by the pounding sun,
beaten into a flat sphere that stretches
into eternity,
it seems.
Isolation and loneliness
have been my companions
in this land of no direction.
The sun perpetually at high noon,
determined
to dry every drop of life-giving fluid.

Yet in the midst of this endlessness,
You rained down water
over my aching, shriveled heart.
Life-giving mercy flowed
down from heaven in
the place where I lay.
Around me still was dry and stiff and stale,
but on my perch of desert
grass began to grow,
my heart’s slight palpitations
were strengthened to
strong beating.

And in the middle of that miserable wasteland,
there came a faint calling to my ears,
as if other isolated hearts were
crying out in thirst.
Would my rain follow me
if I left my now lush parcel
of earth?
Looking to heaven,
the source of saving water,
there came a peace in my
bewilderment–the Water
would follow,
even as I stepped from springy
green
to hard brown ground.

My heart skipped a beat
with my first step from
safety and blessing–would
blessing follow?
But my fears were put out
like fire in a deluge,
for when both feet stood
firmly strong on the old familiar
coarse desert sand,
the water–it must be
Living–poured out,
bringing forth blades
of new life on the desert beneath.

With each step grew
the sound of those faint heart-cries,
until, step after step of
walking in the Living Water,
I found one,
parched and shriveled
as I had once lain.
And as I stood near it,
some of the Living Water
that flowed over my heart
splashed onto the
dried heart.
Over time–I do not know how long–
I began to understand the beating of
that heart,
and in the Life-giving Waters,
we
lost our loneliness.

From there, we sought out the
cries of other parched hearts,
leaving a trail of lush ground
behind us, for
even after leaving  a plot of ground,
the Living Water left signs of having been there.
Some shriveled hearts found the trail,
and drank from the Water
on the ground, given enough strength
to follow.
Finding us, we could hear their hunger
to be filled with the Living Water,
and as they sought in their thirst,
they were filled, their
faint palpitations turning into
beatings of fulfillment.

Some hearts heard cries we
did not hear, and they
sought them,
followed by Living Water.
Yet in the separation of revived
hearts,
the Living Water never grew less.
Instead, we could see
from where we stood in the
lushness of the Water’s
pouring,
that where there was once endless
desert of brown lifelessness,
there now was a land
of green watered fields,
flowers blooming in the
partnership of sun and Water.

What was once
endless dryness,
killing slowly the hearts of
Creation,
is now a land of plenty,
nourishing those
same hearts.

Blessed be the Living Water!

^“Whoever believes in me [Jesus], as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”  -John 7:38