The River

A powerful and beautiful creation of God.
A dried up river makes you feel an ache within your heart that makes you long for the water to cascade down it's banks to fulfill it's glory. If you follow the dry river bank as far as it goes you are sure to find water. No matter how dead and dried up it may look, somewhere along the never walked upon path of it's bed you will find water. Sometimes ever so faint. Sometimes just trickiling through the stones.
Then you watch the water go through so many different stages. It can go from being absolutely quiet and serene to raging. White caps that tumble over one another like it is a race to the bottom. Causing little whirl pools of activity and noise. The beautiful sound of the water rushing over the rocks.
Follow it a little more and you will watch the white caps turn into a serene pool. Where the water lazily gathers and forms a calmness that you can lose yourself in. Lingering at the pool for a bit dipping your toes into the water. The chill is immense but ever so calming. So you stand there soaking it all in. Letting the water dance around your ankles. Dance around your knees. Watching the sunlight bounce off the rocks under you. Making it's interesting and unique outlines within the water where not two are the same.
Stepping out of the pool and walking further down the rapids start again. Roaring over one another in the race to reach the next pool. Only to come to a sudden stop when it hits the dry banks again. But ever so persistent it keeps smashing over the rocks in a race to fulfill the bed. Ever so slowly. But with an unbelievable amount of force.
The river lately has given me a reminder of God. That river bed is my life. The journey that I experience in my day to day life. One moment I feel like the water, God, is barely there. Then the next I realize that the water is always persistent and always existing. He may take me through rough spots and waves that seem impossible to swim out of. That knock me flat on my butt and knock me around within it's power. The struggles that make me feel like I will never be able to surface above them. Just as I start to get too tired to continue and feel my head start to sink below the surface He drifts me into the next stage. Down out of the rapids into the calm.
Taking each step as a season. Taking each powerful crash against the rocks. Calming within the pool for a while. Only to know that in the future I may get those waves again in a different circumstance. I may feel totally dried up and dead but when I search deep enough, and sometimes just below the surface, I am alive. I am alive in Christ. The ever flowing, all existent water. When I am thirsty He will fill me. Always there for the next wave. The next calm. The next dry spell. Never alone.
Thankful that God is so ever flowing with His love and his grace. With His forgiveness. That He is always there for His children. Even when I feel like I am forgetting He is pushing through the dry bed and bringing the water of life back into my soul.