Parched

My high school daughter walked home from her bus stop yesterday, at least most of the way. And 1.5 miles, and that's after being on a bus for an hour- a non-air conditioned bus I might add. Add to that the temperature of 110 f.
My point: she was parched, literally. Her eyes were glazed and her lips were dry and peeling, and she was sick. Even with all of the physical stress on her body, and her feeling so ill, her comment when I asked her why she didn't wait in the shade was "Well, Mom, I just wanted to try it on my own."
Man, I love analogies...they're what make me "get it" most often about the big issues of life.
We are all like this aren't we? We want to "try it on my own" and we end up parched. Dried out, glazed over, and sick to our stomachs. Of course, I'm not talking about the walk home from the bus stop. I'm talking about the decision to forge ahead into the unknown - on our own.
She tried it on her own again today, by the way, but this time she was prepared: she had extra water, a cool little spritzer fan that clips on her belt (thanks to her Papa), and has figured out how to look for the shady side of the street and stick to it. She was much better off today. Why? Because she was willing to take the help that is readily available to her. Sure, yesterday she was able to get her body back to almost normal after three bottles of water and a pedialyte freeze pop. But, she was still drained, emotionally and physically.
And it hit me: we can certainly "recover" from being parched by making sure we replenish afterwards as necessary, but it leaves us a little more weary in the process. On the other hand, if we figure out what we need to keep from getting parched in the first place, we realize that trying it "on our own" is rooted in self-reliance, one of the very things from which we as believers need to break away (which should sound familiar if you read cj's blog)....
I am incredibly grateful for the God who has sent me a letter about how to keep from being parched, and what to do when I find myself in that situation. My job is to hunger and thirst for righteousness and in that endeavour, dry and dusty as it may seem sometimes, there is water for my soul... plenty of it.