Stampin' Sisters in Christ Challenge 55 . . . water

Happy Sunday stampers! Its time for another challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ. This week's hostess is Grace, who selected this verse from John 4:10, 13-14 (New International Version) 10Jesus 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." 13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Her challenge is to create a card or project that refers to water in some way, whether in image or sentiment.

Our sponsor this week is a new one, and it is in the United Kingdom for our international visitors! It is Craft Brulee, and if you have some time, please pay her a visit.

I couldn't decide which I liked better so I posted a brace-and-a-half of ducks. One of these is for my daughter's friend at college who got herself a pet duck for one weekend to keep herself company in her dorm room. Yes, she did return it to the farm it came from . . . ducks and dorms don't go together for long.

On to the verse Grace selected. . . this is from one of the most beautiful stories in the bible--beautiful to me. The dialogue in Grace's selected verse comes from an encounter Jesus has with a Samaritan woman who came to the well in the middle of the day to draw water. She deliberately is avoiding the traditional time when the other women of the village come to draw their water . . . we can only imagine why but perhaps one clue comes from the conversation she has with Jesus.

During their talk Jesus reveals he knows the Samaritan woman has had five husbands and is now living with someone to whom she isn't married. Picture the culture of that time and the scandal that would have created . . .the gossip, the sidelong glances, perhaps even drawing back their garments so they wouldn't be contaminated by this woman's touch. Women gathered at the well in the village for far more than gathering water; they also exchanged news, visited, socialized and this Samaritan woman was excluded from their company. Yet Jesus reaches out to her, personally, as he did so many times in the New Testament to the outcasts in society.

I like to think she accepted his gift of living water . . . there are some cues in the text to tell us she might have. She couldn't contain her excitement but ran to tell everyone in her village about her meeting with Jesus. When you are filled with the living water Jesus offers to everyone who believes, you can't help but want to share it with others. When He reaches into your life and lets you know you have incalculable worth in the Father's eyes, regardless of what the people around you think . . . it erases that outcast image. The living water fills up your soul and even in the dry times ahead . . .and there will always be dry times in this life, there is a little reservoir inside that never quite is empty.

Hope you find time to play along with our challenge this week. Thanks for looking.

Stamps: duck is Hambo, sentiments from PTI