This week’s Carnival of Beauty is hosted by Marla of Just Marla, and our topic, of all things, is “The Bible.” As I’ve given this some thought during the week, I keep realizing how much I need the Bible as a mom. Are there other people like me, who feel like they’re dry and thirsty without daily refreshment from the Word?

I periodically look through my list of key phrases people type into search engines to find my site. It sometimes baffles me how a certain phrase will lead someone here. This past month, I noticed these phrases among many with the keyword “mom/mother:”

— frustrated mom blog
— bone tired mother
— advice for moms raising teenage boys
— frustrated mom of preschoolers
— christian words of comfort to a mother who is having a hard time with a teenager trying to discipline

I imagine what led a woman to her computer to type in one of these phrases. Perhaps she had a long day of work — either away from home or AT home with her children; she drove her mini-van to the grocery store or Stuff-Mart at least once during the day to pick up some necessity, kids in tow; she prepared at least one meal for her family, though possibly all three, including snacks (semi-healthy of course); then she drove her kids to all their activities and kept up with the other moms; she oversaw her kids’ homework; helped them with baths (if they’re still young); read them a bedtime story (or three or four); listened to their prayers; and tucked them in bed. Of course, somewhere in all that, if she has a husband, she shares time with him, discussing the day, planning for the next day, maybe even having a real conversation once the kids are in bed.

At some point during the day, she taps into her computer, “Bone Tired Mother.”

This is what I imagine, at least. She’d be even more bone tired if she’s a single mother, with no one to help share the load, and financial strain weighing heavily on her mind.

So what can I say to encourage these moms?

What I’d like to say is that there was another woman, in another time, who was also bone tired, exhausted from a fast lifestyle that made her feel cheap and used. She felt unloved and unworthy. When she went to draw water from a well in her city one day, a man who was there asked if she’d also get him some water.

“How can you ask me for a drink?” [she questioned Him.]

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said. “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?” …

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:9-13 NIV).

A spring of water … doesn’t that sound refreshing?

These verses are what I want to pass along to the bone tired, frustrated mom who is trying to manage toddlers or discipline teens. Dear mom, I hope you will find a few minutes today to read from the source of the well — maybe even opening up your own Bible to read John 4 and underlining or circling the phrase “living water.”

Then, if you want to see how the Word of God can change someone’s life, I have to send you to a powerful testimony I just discovered yesterday. Over a period of several years, through friendship and sharing Christian books, Carol of She Lives shared Christ with her housekeeper, who has now discovered Living Water. I know you’re busy and you have so much else to do and read, but if you have a chance to read She’s Got a Housekeeper (in three parts), this is what life is all about! Thank you, Carol, for sharing that with us!!

When the Samaritan woman at the well met Jesus, she couldn’t wait to go tell everyone else the Good News! I think that’s why many of us blog — we want to do the same thing in the 21st century.

When we’re thirsty, God’s Word is a well, always offering us a continual source of refreshment.

Let us drink deeply, sisters.