Women And Water

Laura is one of my favorites. She is tall and blonde and gregarious as well as a very good basketball player although I have never actually seen her play. After the season ended last year, she transferred to WCS from another Houston private school and was placed in my Gospels class. I am not sure I have ever met anyone as eager to make up work when they miss school and that's one thing that has impressed me. That and she always adds prayer requests to her daily quizzes and shows tremendous compassion for others. Since she missed 2/3rds of the 2014-2015 academic year, Laura is with me again in Gospels. Let me go back to the analysis of her basketball skills. While I have never seen her on the court, I do know she is being recruited by some good colleges. That's usually a pretty solid indicator.

My middle school team practices first period and last Monday began our longer practices which commence at 7:25 AM. My rule is no boys on our side of the gym when we practice but our high school girls are always welcome to watch. Laura was early every day last week and observed our first fifteen minutes of work from Monday through Friday. As she entered my classroom on Friday afternoon, I asked Laura her observations on those five days of practice. She caught me off guard with this statement:
"Coach, there is something that is really bothering me."
I respect Laura's opinion and I was intrigued by what was on her mind. Was it coaching methods or strategy or the small number of kids on our squad? Not even close. This is what she said:
"Coach, it bothers me that y'all drink out of the cups and cooler instead of out of water bottles."
Let me backtrack. Up until last week, I had filled seven POWERADE bottles with ice water each morning, one for each girl, so we never have to leave the floor. When the bottles moved with our varsity team to our other facility two blocks away on our west campus, I improvised, filling my Igloo Playmate Cooler with ice water before practices and bringing a stack of plastic cups to replace the bottles. And that was the issue. I was dumbfounded. When I mentioned in class, I found the girls were in universal agreement with Laura. Next period, when I asked Ivana, the only 8th grader on the team, she concurred with Laura. I asked her what the big deal is and she told me it has to do with dipping a cup into the water that your lips have touched. Once again, I was incredulous. Ivana told me they have solved the dilemma by using one cup only to dip and she fills up all the other girls' cups. I would have never known. The more I know about girls, the less I know about girls.

In Laura's class tomorrow, we will be taking Test # 6. Part of the material comes from the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well in John 4. You know it. Jesus and His men are traveling and stop in Sychar. The disciples go into town for food and the Savior has an impromptu conversation with, I would guess, the most infamous citizen of the village. He asks the woman for a drink- she is shocked He speaks to her. She tells Him He has nothing to get water out of the deep well- He says He has Living Water, or eternal life, if she will only ask. She doesn't understand. That's where my story intersects. To me, water is water is water but not to these young ladies. To the Samaritan woman, water was merely liquid and an inconvenience but to Jesus, there was a much deeper spiritual application. She thought she could avoid the trips to the well; He meant life with the Father was possible! It's funny. The unnamed lady ran back into town and brought the whole population back to hear Jesus.... and many became believers! Jesus' men brought back...... nobody. She made a difference while on that day at least, they didn't appear to make a dent. And like Laura, it all started over a drink of water. All of a sudden, I'm thirsty!

Applicable quote of the day:
"There are only three things women need in life: food, water, and compliments."
Chris Rock

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
www.hawleybooks.com
E-mail me at steve@hawleybooks.com