White waves and living water

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

There are so many parts of the Old and New Testaments that refer to water and use it to describe God and also how God dwells within us. I love the lines above from the story of Jesus with the woman at the well. Jesus gives living water and water comes in many different forms.

I called this website “White Waves” because waves are a form of water that is full of fresh energy and movement. In Christianity water is also a symbol of birth and life. I also have had some strong experiences in my prayer of God speaking to me through the image of waves. Waves and water have also been an important part of my physical life. As a child I sailed dinghies and loved playing at the beach in the surf.

I had a strong image of water in my imaginative prayer life where God/love appeared in front of me as a stationary wave when I was about thirty. I was anxious about a lot of things and what the future was to bring for me. I also had a lot of fears. I felt God was saying to me that he was standing right in front of me like a wall of water and the water in my image was his love. His love would be with me on the road ahead and his love was vast and powerful.

The wave in my prayer reminded me of the wave of water in the movie “The Dawn Treader” based on the book by C.S. Lewis which you can take a look at in the clip I’ve added below.

Except from the movie The Dawn Treader based on the work of C.S. Lewis

There was a prayer exercise I was introduced to when I was learning about Ignatian spirituality that was called “the river and me”. I found a drawing of this recently. It was looking back at where I had been and where I was now with my life in reference to how a river flows. Some of the entries on this drawing are a waterfall, a stagnant pond, calm water, rapids and a storm.

If I think about where I have been recently and where I am now in relation to this river I would have to say that until recently I have been in fairly stagnant waters spiritually. Despite so much happening in my life with having had two babies in the last two years and having also moved twice in that time I have felt very detached and distant to God. I have felt that I have been on a boat on a distant sea upon stagnant water with no land in sight and no other boat around me.

I now seem to be coming out of that and again seem to be supported in water. I feel as if I am on a boat or a body board and a wave is coming behind me. I am to swim/sail ahead of it so I can catch it and surf or “plane” along with it.

If you used water as imagery to describe where you are currently in your life and in your prayer how would you describe it? What does this mean to you?

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