A cup of cold water

"You people are too good to me,” our paper carrier tells me as she takes the plastic cup of ice water I’ve left in our paper box. By the time she delivers, late in the afternoon, it is hot, very hot--recently, in the nineties. I never bothered doing that before for a carrier.  But she’s more than 80 years old, and delivering four routes. She lives about a block away in a mobile home community, and assures me that between routes she goes home to get something to drink while restocking her delivery bag. She’s older than me by more than a decade, but I can imagine how thirsty I’d get.  In my fifties, helping my teens substitute a hundred-plus customer delivery route, there wasn’t enough water in a water bottle to keep us cool.  As the weather cools down, I’ll back off from the “water breaks.” But it’s one way that I’ve tried to express caring to our faithful newspaper delivery person. Eighty-plus!

 My “cup of cold water” is probably making you think of Matthew 10:42, where Jesus said, “And if anyone gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”  This statement came in the context of how people would receive the disciples as they shared Jesus’ message about the kingdom of God. Those who welcomed these men would be welcoming Jesus. Even offering these wandering disciples a cup of water (hauled from the local well) was commendable.

Over in Matthew 25, offering some drinking water had a different spiritual consequence. Here Jesus was exhorting believers to look after the needs of the hungry, thirsty (there’s the water), alienated, poorly clothed, sick, and imprisoned. Doing so for them would be doing so for Him.

Maybe it just comes down to this simple premise of the bestselling 19^th century novel, What Would Jesus Do? In everyday life, to Christians and non-Christians, Jesus would show kindness and concern. We are to go and do likewise.

As I discussed this with my husband, he told of a certain teller at the bank we use. She has personal and family challenges, but when he goes in the lobby he tries to affirm her. In cherry season, he took her a bag of cherries he had gleaned. Cold from the refrigerator, the cherries served as that “cup of cold water” to her soul.

In turn, I recalled how God recently prompted me to speak words of kindness in the Wal-Mart parking lot. As I came out of the store, I noticed an older woman struggling to put an older man in the passenger seat.  I suspected they were husband and wife. From my experiences in care-giving my mother-in-law in her last years with Alzheimer’s, I concluded this woman was having similar challenges. As she put his walker in the trunk, I went over and greeted her by saying something like this: “I’m guessing you are his caregiver.  I know it’s tough. I’m been there. But I appreciated seeing how patient you were with him.”  She paused and replied, “Some days it’s really hard. Thank you for saying that.”

Kind words, small gifts, a smile, a helping hand, a positive attitude, even an offer to pray for someone—that’s what fills someone’s empty cup with cool, refreshing water. I’m still learning how to do this, but Jesus is a great teacher.