I love water.
I mean, I really, really love water.
I love water in creeks, I love water in pools, I love water in lakes, I love water in bathtubs, I love water in rivers, I love water in the ocean...
I love drinking a ton of water, I love long showers in hot water, I love clean, refreshing, life-giving water. Hot, cold, salty, soapy, chlorinated, carbonated, bottled, whatever. In most any form, I love water.
So I'm at this retreat last week, which just happens to be a mile up the road from Mt. Princeton Hot Springs Pool...
Are you kidding me? score!
There I am, with a bunch of my dearest friends, listening to speaker Karin Blythe, digging into the story of the woman-at-the-well discovering Living Water. And then we spent half the day in the water. Heavenly!
So if you've never been to a natural hot-springs pool, I'm tellin' you, it is one of God's most astounding, incredible creations. At Mt. Princeton Hot Springs you can go down to the river and sorta make your own little hot-tub, by moving rocks around to let in just the right mix of hot & cold water.
Up above, there's a naturally-heated lap-pool. Halfway immersed in deliciously warm water, back-stroking my way across...looking up at the pristine, azure-blue Colorado mountain sky...and my soul wants to burst with peace and freedom and gratitude.
Later, we're sitting down below, in this natural, bubbling-up-with-heat river-pool, talking & laughing & soaking in the healing powers of mineral-rich waters. I trail my fingers through the smooth bed of river-rocks, absent-mindedly pulling out bright stones. I stack them beside me on a boulder, where they dry quickly in the afternoon sun.
My fingertips find a smoothly-rounded stone, rolled & refined & shaped into a sweet, fat heart. I pluck it from the water. It's a deep, rich green; shiny & shot thru with golden-threads of iron-pyrite. I set it alongside my little stash of rocks.
Within minutes, my shiny-green heart is dry...dull, pale.
Unremarkable. Colorless. Grey and lifeless without the drenching of water.
Oh.
Oh! I see...
How my heart becomes colorless, dull, lifeless without the constant drenching of Living Water. And it happens so quickly! A few days, a week...the busy-ness of life convincing me I don't have time for soaking in God's Presence, for absorbing the Living Word.
The rock sits pale & chalky in my palm. A quick dip into the fast flowing river, and it emerges vibrant, lush-green, sparkling-gold.
The other girls laugh & scoff at my sentimentality, but I tuck the rock into my bag when we leave.
That I might not forget.
I love shiny rocks.
And I love water.
