John 7:37
[37]In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

What is true thirst. Have you ever been so thirsty you would give up anything to just have a drink. I have two instances in my life I was at this point.

I had come out of my coma and forcefully removed my tube down my throat. I was not allowed anything to eat or drink for a few days afterward because one I had been in a fire, and they were unsure the condition of the inside of my throat. Let alone the fact I had forcefully removed the tube and might have torn the inside of my throat up, so we needed to wait and see how my throat reacted.

The first couple of days were okay. I was thirsty and would have given almost anything to have a drink. By the last morning, I was literally telling my wife she did not love me and needed to sneak me a drink or she hated me. I had her in tears with how desperate I was to drink. I would have given my life for a drink that morning. I remember the lady coming in and handing me a piece of ice to try and see if anything was wrong with my throat. I savored that ice like it was a million dollar ice cube from a forgotten spring in the Himalayan mountains. It was honestly the best piece of ice and water I had ever had in my life.

After my test, they said I could eat and drink. At first, it was water and Gatorade, but then a nurse told me it was encouraged to drink soda in the burn unit because calories are the key to recovery. I had my first Mt. Dew that afternoon, and if you thought I enjoyed that water that soda was the best thing I have ever to this day tasted.

Fast forward a couple of months, and there I am being limited in the amount of fluid I am able to intake. I want to stress with everything in me that the fluid restrictions were the worst part of my entire hospital stay. It was so bad because I had to make decisions like morning coffee to keep myself regular or midnight drink because I lived in a 100-degree room for skin drying purposes (different story). I was constantly feeling like I was dying of thirst. I tried to save drinks for specific purposes. I even had then shooting my daily pills into my IV so I didn’t have to waste fluid on my pills. It got so bad, and I was so miserable that I am going to come clean about something that may upset my mother and wife.

My mother and wife used to stop at the cafeteria every day and sneak apple juice into my room. They would hand it to em when no nurse was around and steak the container out when they left. I’m not going to lie. Those little containers of apple juice got me through some hard days. To this day, I can not think of a day I was more miserable than those fluid restriction days.

The parallel I will draw here is that we as humans find ourselves searching for answers and wanting to know why all the time. We are thirsty for that answer, and many times, we turn to the wrong sources to try and quench that thirst, but it does not work. I know I tried myself. I fell down the hole of alcoholism and drug use to the point I didn’t know if I was even me anymore. I tried to see if I could answer my thirst myself, and I could not.

It was not until I went to Jesus and let him be the one to be my answer that my thirst was quenched. Can I truly explain how or why this works? Not really. I just know it does, and that he says come to me all you weak and heavy burdened. If their is anything I can say about my brothers in arms it’s they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders from years of being the one people look to in times of need. The great news is you can look to Jesus when you need that support others are relying on you for.