Parched?

After a long week of stressing over tests and papers and jobs, Kenny and I escaped Jacksonville yesterday.

We didn’t make it far—only to Noccalula Falls Park of Gadsden.

Because I hadn’t visited the park since a field trip in the third grade, I got online that morning to check it out.

The park’s Web site proclaimed the waterfall to be a “100 foot natural wonder” and showed off photograph after photograph of the cascading falls. Beautiful. Breathtaking.

I was stoked.

I had also forgotten about the current drought.

The “waterfall” had slowed to a trickle. Okay, a drip.

As I watched the water seep slowly from the parched bed up top, I couldn’t help but think of myself—of my own walk with God.

There have been days, wonderful days, when a glimpse of me was a glimpse of someone living for God. There have been times when I opened my Bible and could barely contain my excitement over each word, each promise that I found there. There have been moments where I felt the presence of God so vividly that all doubts fled my heart.

I look back onto these “snapshots” of my life and smile gratefully. But I would be lying if I said every moment of my days was like that.

Far from it. Each day is a struggle, and many days, I feel like I barely make it through the day intact.

Many days I feel like that sad little waterfall - only a trickle, not enough to make a difference to anyone. The daily stresses that plague us all sometimes drain me of energy and joy.

Yet even as I travel through the parched desert valleys of life (for we all find ourselves there at one point or another) I recall a promise in Isaiah.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."
Isaiah 43:18-19