Crying over (un)spilt milk

In the Bible in 1 Samuel 23 & 1 Chronicles 11, there is this dual account of the exploits of King David's "Mighty Men" - some of David's soldiers that pulled off near super-human exploits. In the middle of these passages is this account of where David & his men are all holed up in some cave & the army of the Philistines (no, not people with bad taste in art, but the warrior nation that lived in what is now the Gaza strip) is all encamped in the villiage below. The enemy has taken over the place & has David on the run & David, being a good melancholic is moaning & whining & goes, "oh, woe is me, how I wish I could drink of the water from the pool in Bethlehem."

And, as the story goes, his three mightiest men sort of overhear this, so they gear up, leave the cave, battle their way all the way down into the city, draw water from the well for David & then battle their way all the way back up to deliver the water to David.

When David gets the water, he's totally in shock & goes, "whoa, what did you guys do that for? You could've been killed!! I was just moping & here you took me seriously?!" and he pours out the water as a drink offering to God saying, "I can't drink this water, it would be like drinking the blood of these faithful men, faithful friends."

and it's such an odd little story, but it's always been this picture for me of friendship, of love. Maybe this is just how I'm wired, but I find when I care about someone, I sort of end up responding like these 'mighty men' - no battling philistines so far, but what I mean is that my heart listens for the longings of the people I care about & then when I hear them go, "oh, I wish I had this..." or "what I wouldn't give for....", then I rush off on my 'mission' to procure whatever their heart longs for. Usually I get weird looks & odd responses &, perhaps like these mighty men, find my gift that I 'risked' for poured out on the ground.... but there is this thing about love that you long to be somewhat of a 'joy-bringer' to the people you love. When you care deeply about someone, sometimes the greatest joy you get is just seeing one moment of joy, one flicker of delight or happiness in the eyes/heart of the one you love.

or maybe that's just me....

...but was thinking about this story when I was in the hospital with my dad. They keep bringing him meals with coffee/tea & he never drinks that stuff. So he was complaining that they weren't giving him something he could drink & so we mentioned that we could get him some 500ml cartons of milk from the hospital cafeteria downstairs. Once he said that it might be nice to get one of the cartons, I was off like a shot, hustling down to the cafeteria & then hustling back this little carton of milk like it was some hard-fought prize, like water stolen from a philistine controlled well...

...and yeah, dad didn't gush (and thankfully didn't pour the milk on the floor like David did with the water), he didn't say much more than a grunted 'thank you' - but it brought so much joy to be able to do something nice for him.... and yeah, sometimes I feel choked that I can't find anything else to bring him, no way to fix everything for him, hurry up the angiogram, heal his heart, relieve his boredom.... Somethings aren't as easy to 'get' as cartons of milk...