"Drag-A-Body" Friends

 

You know that term? "Drag-a-body" friends? "Ride-or-die" friends?

The friends that stick with you when something horrible happens.

Recently, a dear friend of mine brought to light a shift in perspective about this term. And it's not surprising, as she is a friend who shares the same Well Spring of Life as me. That's what happens when you reach the end of your rope, when your light goes out, when you throw your hands up in the air and curse God - God shows up. The Three-In-One, Creator, Crucified One and Spirit, crack open that stony heart and a spring of life starts bubbling out. Kind of like when God told Moses to strike the rock in the wilderness to get water for the Israelites you know?

If you want it, you can have that too.

The best part is, not only you come to life but you aid in others coming to life too.

I love the picture Hannah Anderson paints in her rich book, Turning of Days - Lessons from Nature, Season and Spirit. She says,

Jesus says that the life He offers becomes a "'spring of water welling up to eternal life." He promises that for the one who believes in Him "rivers of living water will flow from within them." I don't know much about ancient wells, but I do know that a spring doesn't stay at it's source. A spring gathers momentum, joins other springs, and together they become a rivulet that becomes a creek that becomes a river that flows to the sea. I know what a watershed is, and I know that the spring must find its way to the ocean.

I think again of the woman who drank that living water and how that spring welled up inside her and life flowed from the round of her being. I think how water trapped under the earth forces its way through cracks in the rocks, how bubbling streams pour forth from stones. So I'm not at all surprised to read that once her rocky heart split wide open, the water of life poured freely, becoming a stream in the desert, a place for others to drink and live. I'm not at all surprised that this tributary would join other springs, gathering momentum until it was a rushing mighty river flowing to a sea of souls.

I'm not at all surprised that those who drink from the water of life become a source of life themselves. 

This is the life that Jesus offers to us right here in the in-between. Between the Alpha and Omega, he says, "I'm here. You can't walk? Do you want to? Do you want to be healed? There's an opening in the roof. Do you have some friends that will help lower you down to me?"

 Do you have faithful friends with dusty feet who will drag your body to the Healer?

As my friend said, "Maybe rather than dragging other bodies, it's really that we take turns dragging each others bodies on this journey toward grace and truth when we need it."

We need each other. We belong to each other. Don't give up. There is rest to be found where Jesus is. Look for signs of life. Look for fruit. Look for water bubbling up from the rocks. Find the tributaries. 

It's here.

We're here. 

* Sculpture of Jesus healing the paralytic at Capernaum from the Galway Museum, Ireland.