For waters will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. 7 The parched ground will become a pool, the thirsty land springs of water. Isaiah 35:6-7

My friend Diane passed away last week. She’d been diagnosed with cancer last spring but that heartless disease spread through her quickly. For the last month she was on hospice at the care center where I visit residents so I had opportunity to become closer to her in the last weeks.

Diane and her husband Rich attended Mt. Life Church as do Dan and I. We were in the same weekly life group together for about two years when it met in Donnelly so I considered her one of my Christian sisters, one with unshakeable faith. That faith was so evident every time we visited. I never heard her complain, I never heard a cross word to anyone taking care of her. She was grateful and gracious to everyone. I witnessed the absolute blessing of peace which God gives to those who love Him as she did. It is a testimony that many of the long time residents stopped in to see her, prayed for her and grieve her now.

Sometimes as I sat holding her hand, quietly praying or talking, often not knowing what else to do, she indicated she was thirsty and asked for water. I’d help her hold a paper cup or bend the straw of a hospital “sippy cup” for a drink. Near the end even that became harder. The nurses and aids left sponge swabs to dip in water and place in the patients’ mouth to relieve dry mouth and thirst. It was a special privilege I had with Diane the day before she passed way.

Yes, I am sad. Grief is the ongoing result of too many friends who are dying from cancer or other diseases. This part of the journey seems littered with shrapnel. I often ask the Lord, “Why, God. Why is it so hard at the end? Isn’t there something more I could have done to make my friend’s passing easier?” I am looking to make to sense of what God wants of me through her death.

This week while closeted to pray, I was remembering visiting Diane and giving her water with the sponge. She needed that one small mercy. Then, I heard, “This is the most important thing of all. There’s nothing more important. “ It showed me God’s perspective. Those things which we consider as almost inconsequential, ordinary acts, God esteems very differently. In Matthew 25, Jesus warns that we will be judged, not by our words or works but that
…. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink

It is not the magnitude of what we do for Jesus that matters. It is about Him, the living water that quenches every thirst. As Jesus revealed to the Samaritan woman at the well,

… whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”John 4:14

One doesn’t have to be in a hospital setting to find the sick and dying. I see a barren world where people are spiritually starving to death and dying of thirst. They are lost and broken and afraid. The enemy has poisoned their souls with the bread of lies and slakes their thirst with fouled water. They don’t even know how they got so lost and as a result, desolation is becoming the normal. In such wilderness, people perish from thirst. You may be the only one who will offer them a cup of “water” which may not even be actual water. It may be the water of forgiveness, acceptance, love or mercy – all done in love in the Name of Jesus.

If my neighbor needs God’s living water for his soul’s salvation, nothing else matters. Additionally, what of my enemy who is even more thirsty than my friend? How large a cup of water does Jesus ask us to give to him?