Healing Waters

It's now been years that Kelsia and I have been writing Healing Waters. We've grown in writing together and collected memory after memory, from snail-mailing the story back and forth to sitting in a coffee shop for hours editing our story together. I don't think we'd take back any of it (except for maybe the one coffee shop moment when we somehow lost the results of the past few hours of our work).
  What has been so special to me is getting a chance to write a story along with my dear cousin and friend Kelsia, a talented writer and loving heart. And then there is the chance we had to delve into the story at the Pool of Bethesda two thousand years ago. (Really, to write about something, you have to delve.) We did research. We got to explore, with our imagination, the streets of Jerusalem in Jesus' time. We created characters we got to know and love, and probably my favorite is a little boy named Kaleb. He would run up and down those streets in Jerusalem looking for adventure. Everyone he met was his friend; he didn't know the meaning of the word "stranger." When he discovered the Pool of Bethesda, where crowds of sick people waited for a chance to be healed, he made friends with Zephi, a cripple. Their stories interwoven are what make up part of Healing Waters.
  When I read our story, I see it through Kaleb's eyes. Funny how a character who doesn't even exist becomes a part of your heart ...
 
  Can this be true? Can I really be in Israel?
  It is April 2012, and I find myself standing in the famous city I've only read about in the bible and wrote about in our book.
  The book ... it's been finished, and sometimes forgotten as it sits in some publisher's office while they decide its fate.
  It's been a wonderful time here in Israel--indescribable. Beyond words. Better than imagined. I could spend hours telling you of the places we've been already.
  I am in Jerusalem.
  One place I have been waiting to visit is--you guessed it--the Pool of Bethesda. I could hardly bear it if we came to Israel but missed this place! Here in Jerusalem is where the site of the Pool lies.
  The day has finally come ... we get a chance to visit the place where, thousands of years ago, such an amazing story took place ... Jesus ... coming to the Pool of Bethesda ... meeting the lame man, the man my cousin and I named Zephi ...
  I look down at my feet as I walk down the street. I'm following our little group as we make our way through the city trying to find the place of the Pool. There are people all around us, voices, foreign dialects ... I smile. Beautiful.
  I look up just in time to see a little Israeli boy dash ahead of me, through our little group, and out of sight.
  He's Kaleb's age. He looks like Kaleb. 
  I smile again at the absurdity of this little boy reminding me of one who doesn't exist.
  Suddenly we find the place of the Pool. Through a gate, past a railing, and you're there.
  How changed it is. I can hardly picture how it would have been. Remains of little mikvehs, remains of two larger pools, remains of a Byzantine church built beside it in later years. It only makes it more mysterious, more elusive, more special ... that I will never see how it was in those days, but that I am standing right where it happened.
  Chills run down my spine.
  Jesus.
  Here.
  "Do you want to be made well?"
  "Zephi" the cripple must have scarcely been able to believe those words. What kind of a question is that? I have been lame for thirty-eight years! What could I want more than to be made well?
  Why would Jesus ask that question? I've never thought about it before ... it's like asking a starving man if he wants a hot meal. Is it a joke? Are you trying to be funny? How can it be this easy?
  Why would Jesus ask that question?
  Zephi's faith. It was about his faith.
  How surreal; it's like someone asking you if you want what you've always wanted but never believed you would have, but Jesus asked it like He was holding it out right there in front of you. Not "Would you want this," but "Do you want this?"
  No, really ... do you want to be made well? Here! Take this gift! I'm holding it out to you!
  The only way it can be received is to reach out and take it--grasp the impossible.
  What a beautiful story.
  Here, where I'm standing.
  It's a special time for me. After a while, though, our time is up. We follow the railing and exit through the gate, back out into the Jerusalem streets. I look to the street on my right.
  A lame man. An old lame man, sitting on the street, clutching his cane.
  My heart stops.
  Zephi.
  I can hardly tear my eyes from him as I walk past. When I finally look forward, I realize I've stopped and everyone else is ahead of me. And so I pick up my pace, trying to catch up.
  I steal one more glance back at the old man.
  And suddenly there beside him on the street is a little boy. The same little boy I'd seen right before the Pool is sitting down with the crippled man, and the picture they make stops me in my tracks again and goes straight to my heart.
  It's like a smile from God, a reminder of the beautiful story ...
  ... and I'm reminded of how convinced I am that He wants us to tell this story.
 

It feels right to me that LIFE
must have balance,
that good times and hard times
are meticulously measured out,
 for it is only in the blend of both
that we grow...
that wholeness comes
that we know how to laugh with others
and how to cry.
Substance in the human heart is built...nurtured
so much more by pain and failure
and disappointment
than by happiness and joy,
yet God in infinite wisdom understands what our limits are
and never
tries us more than we can handle.
-unknown

YES by Ann Kiemel


YES
hurt is a part of life, of mine...
of everyone's
Hurt is one of God's most wonderful
opportunities to teach us his love and care.
To show us areas where we need to grow.
To teach us to forgive.
To remind us how easily we have hurt others.
Our ability to cope with hurt proves how much
Christ is in control of our lives.

Yes to hurt.
To God's love that wants to work
good even through this.
To accepting life as life...
not some utopia...
and fitting into the cracks and crooked spots
and rolling with the punches.

Yes to beauty of pain.
The golden hours...the golden spaces of my life...
have been the time when I know no answers.
Didn't know what tomorrow had for me...
felt battered...and broken...and lost.

Times of pain are so hard.
They take so much courage.
Like today
But pain is important.
dreams are made from conquering pain...
from the ability to draw a PLUS across it
to cancel out the black and instead
fill it with color...what ever that experience is.


I've known good times and I've know terrible times.
When things are too smooth,
I have all the right answers.
My priorities get shifted. scrambled. put in bad order.
My eyes see without feeling.
My heart grows lazy and casual about God...
and about God and me.


In the dark, ugly times...the pain is so intense...
the grief so great...that the fog is cleared.
I come face to face with truth.
I am stopped, immovable. frozen. an then melted
and crumbled. reorganized.
and remade
and refined and NEW.
The winter goes to spring,
and spring to summer,
and summer to fall.
The wounds are healed and the darkness
turns so sunrise.
I know how weak and small I can be...
and have rediscovered how
Omnipotent
And warm
And all wise
God is.

This song.
Wow.
Listen to the words.
Listen.

Life...

Beautiful...
underneath all pain.
Fragile...
you might not be here tomorrow.
Full...
of joy unspeakable and tears uncountable.
Blessed...
our life is not our own.
Hard...
the race takes commitment.
Rewarding...
oh, the small things that can bring a smile.
Delicate...
God's fingers interwoven in yours to hold you up.
Exciting...
God had amazing things in store for you.
Musical...
dance to the melody.
Frightening...
but his hand will hold you up as you continue into the unknown.
Challenging...
Whoever promised life would be fair?
Uncomprehendable...
from the way we were created to the many paths our lives take, who knows it?
Breathtaking...
in the smallest of things...a blooming flower, a colorful sunrise, a smiling person...
A gift...
what are you going to do with it?

Changes

Hi everyone, and welcome to the new Inkwell. We have just changed sites because of some account/profile complications, but it will be the same thing. We've changed the URL of the old site so that we can put this address in exactly like the old one. So to check The Inkwell, just type in the normal address, www.theinkwell10.blogspot.com.
  We've had to re-enter all the blog posts on this site, which is the most annoying thing. ☺ Because of this, all the comments will be gone and we'll have to start from here. Thanks for your patience!
  P.S. You will also have to follow this site again if you were following the old one; the old one will be deleted. Thanks for your patience! Have a wonderful day.
 
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Healing Waters

Hi everyone! Kelsia and Cherie here.
  For those of you who don't know, we've been working on writing a book for the past few years. Today we finally sent our manuscript in to a publishing company, so if you think about it, you can pray that if it's supposed to be published, God would work it out.
  So what's this story about?
  Well, the title is Healing Waters. Interwoven throughout the book are the story of Quinn, a young man who gave up hope when paralyzed in a motorcycle accident, and the Bible-times story of Zephi, an old crippled beggar who waits daily at the Pool of Bethesda for a chance to reach the waters that would heal him. Both are seeking healing waters, and the journey to find it may bring things they never expected.
  So, what does it take to break a man?
  What does it take to heal a man?
  Wait and read our book to find out!