The Gift of Water
As a little girl, I learned to sing “The Mulberry Bush” with the lines:
This is the way we wash our clothes,
Wash our clothes, wash our clothes.
This is the way we wash our clothes,
So early Monday morning . . . and so forth.
Last night I changed the words to:
Tonight I get to brush my teeth,
Brush my teeth, brush my teeth,
Tonight I get to brush my teeth
With water from the faucet!
Because yesterday I learned that the county water utility sent in our water samples on March 31 instead of the expected April 5. A few hours later I heard the joyous results: our water is clean and ready to use.
When we think about the whole world and the history of the world, having water coming out of faucets inside our houses is a blessing. I have a few scattered memories of my family’s life before we had an indoor bathroom. In mine and Ray’s pantry now is the white enamel table Mother used as her water table.
When I was almost four, we moved to town. In our new home, she wouldn’t have to use a water table any more. The water table came with us anyway, though. In our new home, it stood beside a real kitchen sink with a faucet; and when I grew older, Mother taught me how to make biscuits and pie crusts on it.
More amazing than water from faucets inside our houses is how God sends us water and that He loves us enough to do that. Zechariah and Jeremiah remind us of the source of our water:
Ask for rain from the Lord at the time of the spring rain—
The Lord who makes the storm winds;
And He will give them showers of rain, vegetation in the field to each person.
Zechariah 10:1
Are there any among the idols of the nations who give rain?
Or can the heavens grant showers?
Is it not You, Lord our God?
Therefore we wait for You,
For You are the one who has done all these things.
Jeremiah 14:22
And Amos and Solomon tells us how He does it:
The One who builds His upper chambers in the heavens
And has founded His vaulted dome over the earth,
He who calls for the waters of the sea
And pours them out on the face of the earth,
The Lord is His name.
Amos 9:6
All the rivers flow into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full.
To the place where the rivers flow,
There they flow again.
Ecclesiastes 1:7
Therefore, brothers and sisters,
since we have confidence to enter the holy place
by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way
which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, through His flesh,Â
and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
let’s approach God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience
and our bodies washed with pure water.
Hebrews 10:19-22