Thirst Traps - A Good Girls Guide to Being Thirsty

Thirst:

When was the last time you were actually thirsty? Take just a second and remember the feeling-the sheer desperation of needing something to quench your thirst. It brings to mind the image of a lone traveler in a desert gazing into the horizon in search for a cool spring.

I've never had to crawl across a desert, but I think the thirstiest I'd ever been was when I was in high school in a Summer Soccer tournament. Our team had a four game tournament starting at 7am on a Saturday & It was sweltering hot outside. The heat alone was one factor; but, the activities of constant running on that soccer field was another. I also was battling an eating disorder and medically severely dehydrated. By midafternoon my throat was raw and lips were cracked. In one of the particular games, I remember running to the side lines and the water cooler being gone. The only thing to drink was a hot Dr. Pepper in my bag. I took the Dr. Pepper- (it could be worse like grape soda)- and in my moment of desperation tilted my head back and took a long drink.

For a minute, my need was gone. But just as quickly, my thirst was back and raging with a vengeance. Only one thing was going to satisfy and that was the genuine article: H2O, I was in desperate need of the real thing.

As I think about how intense my thirst was that long hot day, I cannot help but see the similarity between my body's thirst for real water and my soul's thirst for God. Just like settling for a hot soda instead of a cool refreshing water. I settled for what I hoped would satisfy my thirst: a man. I was the girl for many years in my twenties that had to have a boyfriend. Time and time again, I hoped a relationship would fulfill the deepest longings in my soul-- like the hot soda, the hot guy worked for a moment but in the end I was left parched & searching for love.

relationships.

Let me explain. Relationships can be amazing, especially at the beginning--they hold so much promise. You meet a guy and if there's actually a connection-or as Carrie Bradshaw would say za-za zoom - there is such hope and excitement when you two first start hanging out. Often we enter these relationships with a secret thirst, not a physical one. Our souls are thirsty and we hope certain needs will be quenched in the relationship.

We come into a relationship hoping to feel that we belong to someone. And for a season we do feel that way. There's that rush that happens when we walk down the street hand in hand or the joy of having a date for our office Christmas party. The fill in the blank for your particular I-can't-go-alone event. The confident feeling that says, "I'm with someone" makes us feel important, special and desired.

We also come into relationships with the hope of finding acceptance - someone who will love us. One of my favorite movie lines, "Just the way you are" (Thank you very much Bridgette Jones). We hope the nagging questions about our worth, our lovability and all those pesky self-doubts will be removed with the mere presence of another.

Many of us enter into a relationship and think, Security at last! Finally, someone who will make everything OK, I'm not alone anymore. Perhaps subconsciously we believe we've found someone who will take care of us and meet all of our needs.

And last, but certainly not least, we come into relationships with a deep thirst for completion. This is the hope that someone else will fill our emptiness and drive away the loneliness. Oh yes, romantic love comes in a rush and lets face it... romance is a rush. But there still comes a day when we wake up and realize, I'm still empty. We still don't feel all that secure. For some reason we don't feel loved. And even if there is a head on the pillow next to ours we can still feel completely alone.

Simply put we come into relationships looking for unconditional love. But can this love be found in any human relationship? Or better yet, are human relationships enough to satisfy the thirst of our souls for belonging, security, acceptance and completion? Can boyfriends or husbands banish all of our insecurities and make us feel whole and complete? I would suggest the answer is no.

Disillusionment

For many women the disappointment can lead to disillusionment--is the love my heart thirst for really available?

Disillusionment can send some women into depression and even others into divorce. I'm serious here- think about it. If I enter a relationship with the expectation that this guy is going to fill my soul and drive away all my insecurities, what happens when he fails? Does that mean I married the wrong guy? Does that mean I haven't found the one? Granted, there are reasonable expectations we should hold as a part of being in a healthy relationship-one in which both parties are concerned with meeting the other person's needs. If a man is a real man, he will be concerned with making his girl feel secure, accepted and loved.

But the point is this: even the best guy on his best day can only go so far. There will always remain a place unreachable by flowers and kisses, that belongs to God alone; and it is this place, the God-Spot that our deepest thirst is found. Until that place is filled by God Himself, all the romance in the world will never satisfy. One stop at your local grocery store will confirm this truth. Pick up People, Us Weekly or and other celebrity gossip magazines and you will find tales of souls searching for love. Our addiction to these publications is fueled by who's dating whom? Who is getting divorced and why-did-so-and-so-leave-her-latest-soul-mate drama? When the celebrity relationship begins, each party is gushing to the world as to how they've found the one - the love of their lives. But, then no sooner than you've thrown out the last weekly edition the celebrity has moved on to someone new, someone who will hopefully, this time, meet all her needs and quench the thirst.

Life Lessons from Carrie Bradshaw

It goes without saying that Carrie Bradshaw, Sex & the City character typifies the lovelorn woman best. Throughout the six seasons, Carrie's love life is the central focus of the show's plotline. Her hopes, dreams and disappointments fuel much of Sex and the Cities success with women everywhere. Why do women love Carrie? Is it just her love for shoes? Is is the fashion? Perhaps both, but I think the real reason we love Carrie is we identify with her struggles, her desires and her hope to find real love.

In the final two episodes of Sex and the City, Carrie's search for love has led her from comfy confines of her New York City apartment across the Atlantic ocean to an exquisite hotel room in Paris to be with her current "luvah" Mr. Alexander Pertrovsky. In what one of the most dramatic moments in the six seasons of Sex and the City, Miss Bradshaw confesses the ultimate desire of her heart:

I'm looking for love, Real love. Ridiculous- inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love, And I don't think that love is here in this expensive suite in this lovely hotel in Paris. -Season 6, episode 94

With these words Carrie ends her love affair with The Russian, who is yet another disappointment in her quest to find "real love." If you've ever seen this episode, you probably felt the weight of Carrie's disappointment. Carrie kissed her friends good-bye and left life in New York behind... and for what? Yet another failed relationship. She's broken and hurting -her heart is ripped open-and we wonder if she will ever find what she is looking for. Mr. Big, who is now miraculously ready to commit to a relations. True to Hollywood form, the final season reveals a carefree Carrie strolling down the streets of her beloved NYC answering a call from her love, Mr. Big. The two are now living happily-ever-after....or so it seems.

The girls of Sex and the City are no different from the rest of us. They, too have a deep thirst that only God can quench. They crave real love. But their thirst cannot be quenched by Cosmos and their cravings can't be satisfied by cupcakes. They long to feel acceptance and to know the security of unconditional love. What they don't know is what this real love is and where it is ultimately found. We all eventually find out- cosmos and cupcakes, martini's and men will leave you as hung over, overweight and undermined. Our purest form of self becomes and intoxicated essence that reeks of habitual mistakes and continual longings. Unfulfilled desires perpetrate exhausting journeys into emptiness. Empty glass, empty arms, and empty hearts.

Thirst Trap:

It’s not a sin to be thirsty. It’s just where you get your fix that determines whether your soul will be satisfied. In John 4 we are told a story of Jesus sitting at the well in the middle of the day. Typically, no one would go to the well in the middle of the hot day but shame drove the Samaritan woman there. When Jesus sat on the well & asked her for a drink it was a thirst trap. In the conversation with the woman at the well  Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14).

The lesson of this thirst trap is-If you put your validation in other peoples hands you will have to go to them for it. Jesus is saying you will always have somewhere to drink from. Not that you won’t have a need & my sister Jesus used a thirsty woman to change the entire region!

I encourage you to take time in the thirst traps that Satan uses to distract us from the Love of our Father in Heaven. If you are single & stuck in a season of waiting, take this time as opportunity to Glow up find joy in Your season of waiting and the beautiful romance of spending time with God. If you are the girl that is reading this in a season of heartbreak that I so often can relate to- my advice to you is choose joy one day at a time. Each morning, wake up spend time in prayer, each day do one thing that makes you happy. Celebrate your success even if its just in washing your hair. Your GLOW UP is going to be hard for some people to watch. Glow up anyways. Let your traps become your triumphs. Keep healing sis, it looks good on you.

xoxo - Ashleigh Renee