This I Know, That God Is For Me

 

Jesus said to her,

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

John 4:13-14

Jesus told this Samaritan woman her own story, and empowered her to tell it herself. He promised her that he would continue to sustain her, not just in this one moment when they met, but always. That’s where her courage came from. She was not alone, no matter the story that needed to be told.

This is the reading for today; it was also one of the central texts on a retreat I went on last year, one of the texts that enabled me to hear my own truth more deeply, one of the stories that empowered me to go “back into the city” and speak my truth where it needed to be heard. And the promise of that drink of water, the water that continues to sustain long after it is received, that promise was made to me as well.

Things in my family have not continued as the first conversation suggested (more on that in this post). I’ve now had a heavy storm of anger and pain come down on me, with more to follow, I’m sure. There are also more decisions to be made, none of them easy. 

I continue to be supported by friends, and so far I have been able to deal with what’s come my way – I focus on self-care, I do what I can to look after myself. That emergency self-care list was for me as much as for everyone else who might need it. I will need a clear mind throughout all of this, and a heart that knows itself loved by God and by friends, chosen family…

God promised to see me through this, and I believe. And I act while I’m afraid, because God promised that my fears will not overwhelm me…

I made the decision last year that the children’s safety is more important than my present and/or future relationships with others in my family, and I stand by that decision. And I pray that God will bless my best efforts in whatever this will demand of me.

 

This I know, that God is for me.
In God, whose word I praise,
    in the Lord, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I am not afraid.
    What can a mere mortal do to me?

Psalm 56, from 9-11