A New Hymn for World Water Day | Sojourners

A New Hymn for World Water Day

Photo courtesy of Living Waters for the World.
Photo courtesy of Living Waters for the World.

This Thursday, March 22nd, is World Water Day. The April 2012 issue of Sojourners includes Ched Myers’ 'Everything Will Live Where the River Goes', a Bible study on water, God, and redemption.

The following hymn celebrates our need for clean water and the Living Water:

Once a Woman Seeking Water

BEACH SPRING 8.7.8.7. D (“God, Whose Giving Knows No Ending”)

Once a woman seeking water at a well not far from home

Met a thirsty, waiting stranger from a people not her own.

Would she give a drink of water and respond to human need?

Could she know the joy and wonder she, the giver, would receive?

She drew water for the thirsty; Jesus offered something more:

Living water, God’s own mercy, love abundant, freely poured.

One, a blessing for the body; one, a blessing for the soul!

Both are gifts of our Creator—gifts that help to make us whole.

Still God’s people carry water from their wells and mountain streams;

Still at rivers women gather, sharing labor, sharing dreams.

Still a cup of water given in a dry and weary place

Is a blessing overflowing from the fountain of God’s grace.

God, we ask your richest favor on the work we seek to do;

May we gladly share clean water and your living water, too.

May we see the face of Jesus, and how far your love extends,

In the ones we call our partners—no more strangers, now our friends.

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Biblical References: John 4:1-42; Matthew 10:42; 25:31-46
Tune: The Sacred Harp, 1844. Harm. James H. Wood, 1958.
Text: Copyright © Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, 2012.
Hymn Use Permission: Churches that support Sojourners have permission to use this hymn. “Once a Woman Seeking Water,” formatted with the music, is available from Living Waters for the World mission project, the group that the hymn was originally written to support.

Carolyn Winfrey Gillette is the author of Songs of Grace: New Hymns for God and Neighbor and Gifts of Love: New Hymns for Today’s Worship. She serves with her husband Bruce as the co-pastor of Limestone Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware. Sojourners' past postings by her includes hymns for Ash Wednesday/Social Justice, Blessing the Animals, relief efforts in the Horn of Africa, September 11th anniversary, creation care, economic justice, Matthew 25/disaster relief, immigration, the Gulf oil spill and war in Iraq. A complete list of the 200+ hymns by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, many with peace and justice themes, can be found at www.carolynshymns.com