thirsty

"There is no water!" Hamid pleads with me, his arms outstretched in gestures punctuating his frustration at my question.
I eye my front porch, the dust piled up around the straw mat in front of the door, the only place where the ubiquitous-- yet seemingly invisible against the tan marble-- dust becomes visible. I know how dirty the patio has become in the last few weeks from the bottoms of my babies' feet when they return from outside.
How can there be NO water? a voice asks inside me, both skeptical and wary. My American upbringing rears its ugly head. Of course there is water. There is always more...
"Can you please-- just sweep-- then-- a bucketful of water or two..." I have no store of Arabic vocabulary for this very real exercise in problem solving and resort to using my hands to gesture sweeping, then pouring, then using a handled squeegee (what they use here).
"Mafi mai!" Hamid repeats. "No water!"
I clench my teeth and thank him, shutting the heavy wooden door with more force than usual. I send out my helper later, whose expertise in colloquial Arabic sets things straight and I think I have made some progress.
But then there is that nagging problem of no water.
What does it mean to thirst, to really thirst? I remember standing with my back against our refrigerator door, moaning melodramatically to my mother about how I need milk: "I'm sooooo thirsty. . . I"m gonna die!" Then the slow, painstaking slide down the refrigerator in mock surrrender until my mom handed me a straw cup of milk. Interestingly, I always perked up rather quickly.
I have never been so thirsty on a continuous basis as I have here in Jordan. The first summer we arrived, our family was simultaneously adjusting from 75-80% humidity of Tampa to around 15% in Amman. I was also nursing Hanna several times a day and the air conditioner in our apartment ran constantly.
Yet the water has run out in our apartment before. Several days when we lift the tap and nothing happens or the laundry machine stops filling. Somehow, the groundskeeper Mohammed always figured out a way to bring the water back.
But now we are sharing water with thousands of refugees who are living in large tent camps, amid the dust of the driest season in Amman. There is 0% chance of rain this summer.
We are all thirsty. And I am just beginning to learn what it means to be thirsty and what it means to have no water.
Water is finite. At least the water that comes from my tap. And in my desperate realization of the illusion that resources, comforts and ease in part form the security of my well-being, I seek Him new. The Living Water. That never runs dry. The only one who can fill this thirst and bring life to this parched land.
I am thirsty.
And for all of my assertions and declaring my agreement with Ann Voskamp's "All is grace!" I find myself quiet. Then in the quiet, another uncovering: how would I, could I know what it means to be filled if I don't truly know what it means to be empty, lacking.
I am sifted. I am broken.
I am thirsty.
Later I call Marwan at the embassy and he tells me that for some reason, they have not opened the pipes to deliver water to our neighborhood in two weeks. The water tanks are very low, even though we have been careful. Later in the day, the embassy sends a truck and soon, the city water is gushing through an accordion hose to our tank. Hamid promptly goes to our backyard and turns on the sprinkler.
For now, we have water. Yet I have learned too much to take it for granted. Or to forget that it could be gone as quickly as it came.
And that is one lesson I would not necessarily learn in America.

for this, and for many other reasons, I am thankful,


...for clean water to drink,
...a baby who loves to express herself in words,
...a second snuggle tonight with my son,
...His protection on Steve's border travel,
...groups ministering physical help to weary refugees,
...older kids playing soccer with baby,
...our third week of homeschooling,
...skype calls to family,
...remembering,
...learning to school alongside other families,
...His steadfast love.