Liesl Stuhr's Water Song Reflection

The water song found in Hinds Feet is such a refreshing poem to read in the conviction it presents. I feel like it speaks so much to the call that Christ has given to us. It seems to take his message and put it into one simple sentence “sweetest urge and sweetest pain, to go low and rise again.” The very image I get in my head is of pouring yourself out completely and joyfully. It brings such joy to pour out your heart and serve Christ and those whom he loves.

I find such encouragement in my life from this water song in the image it gives me. When I read it I see a community working together, finding joy in serving Christ through fulfilling what it was created to do. Created to go from the high places to the lowest places, leaping with joy as it is spreading God’s love and peace while flowing down into the lowest places. “It is happy to go low.” I love this line, for even Christ himself said that he came not for the healthy but for the sick. He went from the highest place to the Valley of Humiliation where we have been holding ourselves in bondage by our own sickness. He poured out his love and his blood for us and is calling me with community to pour out myself for others as well.

It’s not easy, at least not for me. That is one way that I find this song convicting. I struggle a lot with giving all of myself and having the vulnerability that is required to pour myself out. I fear what type of image that reveals about me, I fear my lack of ability. Yet in this poem and this book I realize what type of journey that I am on. Like Much-Afraid when I read this song I wondered what the water meant and how the water has such joy while flowing down away from the high places, yet I am learning what pure joy it is to hear the call and to be like the water “always answering to the call, to the lowest place of all.” I find the desire for this growing stronger and stronger in my life, I am now finding joy as I am being sent to flow freely and joyfully down the hill. I have come to look forward to the moments where I can pour out that love, that message to people through a word, a smile a touch. I too want my song to end in “sweetest urge and sweetest pain, to go low and rise again”