I love fountains. This one sits on my mom's deck, and there's something very therapeutic about sitting near it and just listening to the water pass from pitcher to pitcher then start all over again.

It's almost as if the water is alive.

Not stagnate, simply sitting and gathering moss, but moving and transforming to fit each container it enters.

If I close my eyes and listen, I still know the water is there. The constancy of the fountain brings comfort. It soothes my soul.

I long for Living Water.

In many ways I am the woman at the well for different reasons than the Biblical example. I haven't had five husbands, but I have searched for peace and security in all the wrong places.

I've searched until I've found myself in a place that seems to be bigger than my mind and body can handle.

I've made a commitment for this year. I have to push through. Yesterday, I let it all out at a meeting with all of my English teacher co-workers. The tears flowed freely, and I simply said, "I'm overwhelmed."

I walked away from the meeting at least feeling as if I am not pretending anymore. They know I'm struggling. They know I'm in over my head. They know I'm being stretched and I'm not so sure that this stretching is within God's plan for me long term......

Time.

I need more of it breathe.

Time.

I'll give it this year and pray.

But in the midst of this upside down life I've gotten myself into, I need Living Water...........

I wonder if the woman at the well had said similar things to herself as she walked to fill her pitcher.

Time..I'd say she needed space to breathe. Time.I wonder if the reason she hadn't married the last man was because she wanted to give it a year to see if it would work.....since so many relationships had failed in her past.

And there was Jesus.

Waiting.

Offering.

Giving.

Living.

Sharing freely from a pitcher that never runs dry.

I have a devotional on my desk and two calendars with Scriptures. I cling to them daily as I enter my room.

I need Jesus.

I need Living Water.

I don't want to turn to Jesus and do what the woman at the well did first.

She doubted His ability.

He offered.

And this was her reply,

"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?

The woman at the well thought Jesus wasn't equipped to provide this water. He did not have a utensil for drawing it from the well, and so she doubted.

It seems silly to us to think that someone could have been just a few feet from Jesus and not grabbed Him and hugged and KNEW that He had all the answers.

But I do it every day.

Jesus is IN me.

He walks with me.

And still I doubt He can provide just what I need..

I love Jesus' answer to the woman at the well,

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Living Water.

Forgive me.

Lord, keep my mom's fountain daily in my mind.

Remind me that Jesus is moving and changing me constantly.

Remind me that He flows through me, in me, around me...

I thirst for more of Him.

Help me remember that all I have to do is drink.