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Sep 15, 2023 06:00am

Swim Hole

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For My people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned Me, The Fountain of Living Water, and dug cisterns for themselves-cracked cisterns that cannot hold water. Jeremiah 2:13

Growing up, there was a very special, private retreat, hidden away in the backwoods of our friends’ family land, where they often invited us. Mississippi summers can be quite grueling. There really was nothing like jumping into the cold swim hole hidden in the middle of the woods. Our sweet friends shared their secret paradise with us, and it was the highlight of most of our summer memories.

I remember the first time Alice, one of my mom’s best friends, and her children led us down a path through the woods, promising a special reward at the end of our trek. As a small child, that path seemed to go on forever. Summertime brought very high humidity, and I felt like I could melt and get sunburned even in the shade of the woods. There was really no reprieve from Mississippi heat in July. That was, until we reached our destination.

As we came to a clearing in the woods, just before my tiny freckled frame melted into the pine needles, the most beautiful scene spread out before us. I was not sure what I was seeing, but I knew it looked like a dream come true. It was like a scene from a movie. In the midst of “pencil” pines and mighty ones alike, there was what looked like a swimming pool, but only better.

There was a small, sandy beach area, leading into a partly concreted pool, a diving board atop the concrete and a zip line set up with a knot to stop the adventurer using it midway through the pool. Two inflated black tire tubes sat by the sand near an area where the grown-ups set coolers and snacks.

The adults set up our boombox, blasting Dolly or Randy or whoever else B95 was playing at the time, and we ran into the water with as much excitement as if it were Disney World. Once my feet hit the water, I immediately howled and jumped at the sheer ice I was submerging into. It took my breath away, but I continued, because the Mississippi heat made that ice water feel like heaven….and children seem to have less reserve about silly things like water being too cold.

Mom called the four of us kids to get out of the water and dry off, so she could cover us in sunscreen, and Yalice (as we called her) called her two over for their Coppertone. We all reluctantly dried off and got slathered, sat on some pine straw patches in the shaded heat, and listened as Alice told us about this amazing “ice pool” called “the swim hole” that was filled by an artesian well (constantly pumping fresh water from underground) until the moms said our slather was dry enough to jump back in.

I don’t think there was a spot in that whole pool that wasn’t ice cold perfection. We spent many, many summer hours enjoying the swim hole. I learned how to dive after much patient guidance by Bill on that diving board. We ate picnic lunches and even grilled hot dogs when the dads got to come along, devoured swimming-break-snacks, and played Rockin’ Robin on the hot black tubes-sometimes squishing up to 4 of us on one tube, rocking until the last robin remained as champion of that round. We learned to be careful to find the stem before we jumped up on the tube and learned to turn it over so we could sit on the cooler side every once in a while. We took turns zip-lining into the icy hole over and over again. We played Marco-Polo and raced to the bottom just to push up as hard as we could trying to emerge first, hands in the air like little smiling rockets. We sang “Friends in Low Places” and “Fancy Was-a-My Name” like we were radio stars.

The swim hole was refreshing. It gave us life and joy in the midst of the summer heat. Our worries seemed to fade away at the swim hole.

As I was reading Jeremiah 2:13 recently, my mind immediately went to the swim hole. God sent a message to His people through Jeremiah saying they had abandoned Him-The Fountain of Living Water-and instead dug cisterns for themselves-cracked cisterns that could not hold water. They exchanged their relationship with God, the only true source of life that was a never-ending spring provided by Him, for false gods that they pursued and worked for and built for themselves, cisterns that were no better than sieves.

They had Living Water that would never run out, but they became distracted by things they thought would fulfill them out of their own effort. Those things always ran dry. In fact, they often only ended up collecting mud and muck-things that made them long for true refreshment.

We still do this. God offers us true, lasting fulfillment…but we often pass it up and try to find fulfillment ourselves. It made me think about that refreshing swim hole.

What if I told Alice, “That’s cool, but I think I’ll go find my own refreshment somewhere else.” and wandered through the hot woods searching for my own refreshment? It definitely would not have ended in fresh, cool water…and anything I would have found would have been nothing like the swim hole.

This is nothing compared to the fulfillment Christ has for us, only a tiny glimpse of the exponential fulfillment we pass up when we choose to find wholeness in anything but God. Those things will always end up short-only gathering muck that weighs us down in comparison to the wholeness found in Him.