Friendship
Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.
Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
By this he meant the Spirit.
John 7:37-39
Dear Friends,
This last Saturday I sat in my friend’s backyard while the cold ocean breeze fought the warm sun for attention. Eating frittata and blackberry crumble and an abundance of chocolate we all talked for hours. Time was getting the best of me as I had other responsibilities I needed to tend to, but there was so much to say and hear as we poured our lives out to each other. I left that backyard thankful for backyard spaces, good food, friendship, and acceptance.
It wasn’t until this moment, as I read today’s scripture, that I recognized the holiness of that backyard space and my friendships. There was something sacred happening that I wasn’t paying attention to. There’s something sacred happening in every conversation, interaction, and encounter with another person who has living water flowing within them. I was standing on holy ground with a holy people and I simply thought about how nice it was to be together.
I tend to live on the surface of life, missing out on the depth I’m invited to drink from. These aren’t merely friendships and food and good conversations. These are Holy Spirit, living water, Jesus moments. There is so much more happening around me when I pay attention and invite others to pay attention as well. Maybe this is why a worship gathering can be so powerful—we’re all paying attention at the same time.
The wilderness can be a place of dry loneliness and parched isolation. You might be surrounded by people and still feel utterly alone in your loss and lack—a wilderness only you are experiencing. Sometimes it might feel like the living water in you has dried up and nothing remains except the memory of what was.
Friend, I want to ask you to be brave for a moment. What if you began to pay attention and shift your perspective into seeing each encounter, every conversation and eye contact and interaction as a sacred moment of living water being poured over you by your people? What if you could receive the holiness of living water from others in your dry and weary land, whether they knew they were offering it or not?
Through Christ, there are Holy Spirit, living water moments happening all around us, pouring over us. May we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts that might pay attention, be present to what is, and receive. Because when you are dried out and hopeless, your friends might have just what you need. What a gift.
With (love),
Bethany