Imagine that someone you have been waiting for — someone you have never seen before — arrives in a moment of your life when everything feels still and hopeless, when you believe you are already a lost cause. And within minutes of meeting you, that person says: “I am the Messiah.”

The One everyone has been waiting for is speaking directly to you and knows you better than you can imagine. Wouldn’t that be astonishing?

I remember one night when I was crying over a breakup (as many of us have experienced) and praying that the Lord would heal my heart. My tears were more out of desperation than sadness. It was my ego, because if I’m honest, I didn’t really want the relationship to be restored… and I only realized that months later.

Suddenly I heard a voice in my mind with a radical and wonderful piece of advice that changed everything in my life from that moment on. It said very clearly:

“Stop talking about it.”

It wasn’t referring to that moment. It meant that I needed to stop talking about the situation with other people over and over again, every single day.

It was a loving command — but a command nonetheless — and it worked in my healing process. If you ask me, you might think I’m crazy, but to me that voice was the Holy Spirit who lives within me, because it was far too wise and sensible to be my own thought. And when I obeyed it… everything calmed down. Even to this day.

And the One who calls us is Jesus — who knows who we are, who we were in the past, and who we will become in the future. And even so, He stands there waiting for us to drink from Him, the Living Water that gives life, even in the middle of our deepest pain.

Today I see Jesus as the spring in my desert, the One who even calms my loneliness.

Let us allow ourselves to recognize Him, because the first thing Jesus reveals is who He is, and through that revelation our redemption begins. He forgives us, and He washes our wounds and Heis the safe source where we can release the weight we carry from our past.