What in the world is Joyous Thirst? Thirst may be a lot of things, but “joyous” isn’t on that list!

I know, we don’t usually think of thirst in connection with pleasant emotions: it’s a lack, an ache, a physical sensation driving us to slake it.

Yet, think of that moment on a hot day or after a game of Ultimate Frisbee — that moment when your face is buried in that glass of cool water or lemonade or iced tea — that moment when thirst meets refreshment. That’s joyous thirst.

Ancient Hebrew hymn-writer David loved the relationship of a thirsty deer to a water source as a picture of his own relationship with God. Thirsty. And for something he knows is available and satisfying.

That’s joyous thirst.

We humans are thirsty creatures, living thirsty lives. And in our knee-jerk reactions, we push our thirsts away from us while simultaneously reaching for anything and everything to somehow take the edge off of them. Or at least distract us from them.

Is it any wonder we feel anything but joyous?

Like the deer that’s thirsty for the cool, clean spring, our thirsts point us to the reality of something better: something that truly does more than just quench our thirst. Something that satisfies us.

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God.

Psalms 42:1 (CSB)

A little bit about me

Hello! I’m Joy, and this site is where I share reflections on my faith and the intersection between faith and practice. It’s not a five-steps-and-a-poem kind of blog because — as much as we long for those kinds of easy answers — life doesn’t actually work that way most of the time.

It doesn’t work that way in nature (am I the only one who’s tried all the DIY hacks to keep ants out of the kitchen, only to find that my ants don’t mind Tabasco™ sauce or chalk dust one bit?!). Nature is so much more complex than we give her credit for. And it doesn’t happen in our lives either.

I have strong roots in a spiritual/church culture where we tend to see spirituality as a systematic way of living the perfect life. And as much as we say things like “Christianity is about a person [Jesus], not a religion [a systematic way of earning our worth],” we all find it much much easier to live within a systematic way of earning our worth!

It’s our thirsts that draw us out of this way of life, making us yearn for something more satisfying.

At least, that’s how it has been for me. And that’s what I have observed in every person, group, and organization I’ve been a part of. That’s what I’ve observed in the music, art, and literature that’s around us. That’s what every movie and theater drama is about. This is The Great Story that calls to us from every part of our world and from deep down inside our beings.

And who am I to write about this? I’ve been a member of a mainstream Christian denomination for all of my life. I’ve been a teacher for 2/3 of my life (both within that denomination and as a grade-school teacher). I’m a learning coach and a lifelong learner. I’m sometimes a writing coach, and also a writer. I’m a daughter, a friend, a sister and auntie, a granddaughter, a mentor, a companion, a coworker. I am also a person with multiple, energy-limiting chronic illnesses (including Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, aka ME/CFS*).

But even though each of these informs my wisdom, even though each of these is a route through which God through Jesus finds me and shows me Himself, none of them “qualifies” me to write this blog.

I write as a son of God (yes: son*!!) who is deeply wrapped up in this Great Story. I’ve been found and am being found by The Hound of Heaven* who chases us down with His love and kindness, while redeeming and restoring far more than we ever realized needed redeeming and restoring. I’m wholeheartedly involved in The Great Hunt (as one of my college professors calls this process of thirsting for and pursuing relationship with this amazing, inscrutable God).

And even though being a writer doesn’t actually mean I have all the words for it, I’m in the lifelong process of finding at least some of them. On this blog I share some of my process and the best words I have for the faith it’s growing in me.

O God, thou [art] my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; . . . . Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.

Psalm 63:1-3 (KJV)

Living in the tension of faithful doubt

The writers of the Hebrew Scriptures were great complainers. When Dr. David Eckman* said this in a newsletter a while back (so sad that I cannot find the exact quote to cite!), my heart immediately said “How had I never thought of them this way before?!”

I had already known it, of course. When I was in high school and wrestling with difficult feelings, my mom pointed out to me that in the book of Psalms, a significant number of them begin with the difficult feelings long before arriving at the good feelings we are all pursuing. It is through the owning and processing of those difficult feelings that those ancient Hebrew poets and hymn-writers made space for hope.

And it’s the same for us today.

Sharing those feelings with God moves us in His direction and opens the door for Him to bring healing deeper into our lives.

This is the essence of being human: desiring lovely feelings while having difficult feelings and needing all of those feelings to matter somehow in the grand scheme of things.

And awkward as it sounds or seems, our doubts are often the surest evidences of our faith. Sometimes our faith in The Way Things Surely Must Needs Be* is so strong that we cannot help but be filled with doubt when things are anything but right.

My goal with this blog is to write within that tension between faith and doubt, between hope and heartbreak. I’ve been blogging towards this goal since 2006, and I have purposely left most of my old posts up as signposts to the ways that this theme has grown in me over the years. Sometimes my writing lands more on one side of the tension, sometimes on the other. And always starting from a basis of acknowledging the feelings that drive our thirsts.

How to read this blog

A few things to know about the posts you will find here:

  • Typos are intentional. 😉 If you find one, give yourself a gold star! 🌟 Of course, the reality is that typos are inevitable and that — unlike Pokemon™ — we don’t/can’t always catch them all, even after rereading and checking dozens of times. And much of the time our brains can autocorrect for them as we read. If there’s a typo that’s causing problems with the meaning of the piece, feel free to point it out. I will thank you and do my best to correct it.
  • The posts are sometimes raw, but usually not reactive. Even when I am writing in the moment, even when I am pointing out needs that exist in our world (and maybe our own personal worlds), I don’t post anything here as a cry for help with processing my own emotions.
  • Emotions are shared as a way of saying, “my humanity is welcome here, and yours is, too.” If it’s a difficult emotion and it’s showing up on this blog it means that I have already done enough personal processing (including sharing it with others in my personal circle) that I am ready to hold it up for us to use as a touch point for examining our humanity together.
  • I invite you to be aware of your own emotional responses to it. Are you feeling the need to “make it all better” for me? What does that show you about your own feelings and responses to this kind of difficult thing? Instead of expressing pity, can we discuss the emotions this is bringing up for you? Or maybe instead of discussing it on my blog, you can use my post as a jumping-off point to discuss your own hard emotions with yourself, God, and others.
  • Not all posts end happy. And that’s not only ok but intentional. Sometimes we need words for the times when we are sitting in the Hard Place and the Light at the End of the Tunnel is not visible (or might be a train!).

Here are a few guidelines I ask my visitors to honor:

  • Honesty is foundational, disagreement is welcome, and I expect that we can have both of these with a spirit of kindness and curiosity.
  • Be kind. Be kind to me. Be kind to each other. Be kind to yourself!
  • I generally remove comments with outside links. The one exception is if the link comes with a clear explanation of what it is and how it is connected with my post.
  • Comments on how a post resonates with you are welcome! Commenting back with a shareable note/instance of your own that connects with mine is great! If a comment is mainly pitying in nature, I ask that you keep it to yourself. Grab some paper and write about it as your own journal (or even as an unsent letter to me, if that feels more helpful for you in processing your feelings).

Let’s be thirsty together

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What are you thirsty for?

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Isaiah 55:1-2 (ESV)

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