Living Water
This blog has gone through a dry spell, but I have not. Since my last post on May 29 I gave birth to my second daughter, rested through a maternity leave and made the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make. At the end of August I received a call to pastor a congregation. Calvin Seminary’s pastor for discernment had to do some significant personal discernment work herself. As of October 5 I will no longer be serving the church through the seminary and will instead be serving the church in a local congregation. This post will be the last on this 13 month old blog. I’m glad to have been able to record reflections and to have had a few conversations in this space.
I leave this place with a heart full of thoughts and feelings, but I go with the confidence in God’s splashing grace… Let me say what I mean.
The seminary gathered for morning worship today to reflect together on our baptism. At a point in the liturgy, a seminary student held up a clear pitcher of water. I watched that pitcher as he spoke of the truth of our baptism and the meaning of the water and I sensed that God was about to teach me something.
And suddenly, God did. The student poured the water from the pitcher into the baptismal font. This was no slow and solemn pouring. The water quickly and startlingly tumbled from the mouth of the pitcher and splashed into the font and outside the font and onto the floor: a thorough soaking.
God’s grace need not be slow and subtle. God’s grace can surprise us with its suddenness and soak us thoroughly with its volume.
As a community we sang these words together:
Living water, never ending, quench the thirst and flood the soul.
Wellspring, source of life eternal, drench our dryness, make us whole.
Sylvia G. Dunstan
May the living water and the “rushing stream” of the fountain of wisdom find you. And may streams of living water flow from within you as you grow in the knowledge of God.
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