It was summer during my childhood – revival week to be more specific. Our picturesque white board structure with its wide double doors and steeple pointing to our future home was the setting where I first understood “thirst.”

My spiritual thirst would come later. For this chapter in my young life I experienced the reality of physical thirst.

The giant ceiling fan was our central air which wasn’t always adequate to cool down those August services. One explanation was the all day playing with my siblings and the Mississippi sun that had left its mark on our exposed skin. Add to that our dwindling “battery life” from a full day of play.

All those factors made for a physical thirst, but the clincher fell to the preacher or evangelist. Some prominent committee head provided a glass of cold water on the pulpit for the visiting preacher. During the heat of his message he inevitably would pause, grip the sweating crystal glass and quench his thirst.

My longing for water skyrocketed. However I knew a tugging on my parents’ arms would not gain me permission to leave the service for anything but a fire alarm. We learned to sit quietly during church services and always take care of restroom needs before we filed into our pew.

My parents were convinced we would never die from thirst, even though I still remember those grueling nights of insatiable thirst.

That was then. I’m now concerned about spiritual thirst. Am I thirsty for more of Jesus, more eager to stay in His presence, to stay fixed on Him?

Jesus knew about human thirst and spiritual thirst. His invitation reaches to all:  “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” What a rich offer! How can we be content to drink from worldly, polluted puddles or “broken cisterns that can hold no water?”

That glass of water that used to sit on the pulpit could never have been mine regardless of my thirst or longing, but the water that Jesus gives shall be a well of water springing up into everlasting life. For any who say, “Lord, I thirst,” Jesus says, “Come to me.”

Letters to Camille Anding can be sent to P.O. Box 551, Brookhaven, MS, 39602, or emailed to camille@datalane.net.