Sweet Water - Tuesday of Thanksgiving Week - 2020

 Thanksgiving Week Tuesday, November 24, 2020

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235785

Yes, we are counting down to Thanksgiving.

Have you ever really seen a spring of water.  In Connecticut, across from our house was a wooded tract (that was protected from development.  It had a stream that ran out of the wooded area, but there wasn’t a spring coming in.  I explored (gently) this area.  I said gently because it was overgrown with sticker bushes and more.  (In the spring, it was lush with “Skunk Cabbage”).  I followed the stream once - through the debris of fallen trees, brush and come to a natural spring of water.  It was bubbling up out of the ground and then forming the stream.  

(Aside, it made me wonder if some developer would come along and find the spring, get the city to rezone it as commercial, and start bottling “Natural Spring Water” and bring a lot of income to the city!!!  And, a second thought.  Connecticut has a lot of trees.  There weren’t any live-oaks like Texas - but mostly deciduous trees - who lost their leaves in the fall.  In the fall, I would rake up the leaves on my lawn, put them into the large yard bags, and then run across the street and dump them in the wooded area.  After I had done this for a few years, I did notice how the piles of leaves did decompose - like a compost bin!!! And, some humor. My father would put a wire spring (even like from a click ballpoint pen) into a clear empty bottle and pronounced that it was now "spring water")

But, back to the theme - a spring of water bubbling up.  In the New Testament Gospel of John, chapter 7, verse 38 we have: “The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow springs of living water.’” (some versions say streams or rivers of living water).  

Do you have a spring (or stream or river) of living water bubbling up in you?  

What would that be like (to have a stream of living water in you)?  Would you have a ‘bubbly’ personality?  Would you be a person others would like to be around?  

In settling the American West, water was a problem (and still is).  There are some places called “Sweetwater” in the United States - in particular, Sweetwater Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Arizona, and probably others.  To the pioneers, it was a place that they could get good (or sweet)’ water.  Likewise, there are places called Badwater.  These generally are uninhabited - because who wants to drink bad water - or to have their cattle drink bad water?  

This Thanksgiving week, let’s think about ‘springs of living water’ and being grateful.  What are we grateful for?  The pioneers were grateful for those springs of sweet water (and also marked the springs of bitter water on maps so that others would avoid those areas).  

Let's look at the linked article for a few hints about gratitude!!

-. Express your gratitude in person.  If you work with somebody you appreciate, take them to coffee, verbalize your thankfulness to them.  In the last three weeks, I’ve had coffee with four people - two I treated as gratitude and the other two bought me a cup of coffee to thank me.  Yes, I am retired and I can go out for coffee - but you can do it too.  At Quinnipiac University, when I brewed a pot of coffee (the coffee room was right across from my office), I would carry the pot up-and-down the hall asking my colleagues if they would like a cup of coffee.  (After a while, I also learned to carry styrofoam coffee cups with me - and have the top one with cream and sugar).   There were also a few times when I ran out of coffee and had to make a second pot so I could have some!!!

-.Show respect for the other person

In other words ‘be nice’ - do unto others as you would have them do to you.  The article says “You know how nice it feels when someone takes a few moments to show kindness. Be that person to someone else.”

-. Don’t complain 

How many times have I written GIGO - garbage in, garbage out.  Don’t let the complaints (or garbage get to you - even in times of a global pandemic!!!)

-. Volunteer

When you do something nice for somebody else, you end up feeling great.  

And, a story.

In Israel, there are two major bodies of water.  The first one is the Sea of Galilee - fresh water flows in, and at the south end, freshwater flows out in the River Jordan.  The second one is the Dead Sea.  Freshwater flows in, but nothing flows out.  It stagnates.  It is ‘dead’.  

Which of the two do you currently emulate?  Which would you like to emulate?

******

Back to the original theme - springs of living water; sweet water; freshwater.  In this Thanksgiving week can you think of people who seem like they give you that living water?  How might you (if you don’t already, and I know many of you already do) become like the spring of water - how might you bubble up to those around you? 

I am happy for great mentors along the way, for friends who did pass on living water to me, for those that brightened up my day.  

*****

LOVE WINS!!!

Hugs!!

Karen