“Mommy I’m so thirsty. I want a drink.” Susanna Petroysan heard her daughter’s pleas, but there was nothing she could do. She and four-
year-old Gayaney were trapped beneath tons of collapsed concrete and steel. Beside them in the darkness lay the body of Susanna’s sister-in-law, Karine, who was one of fifty-five thousand victims of the worst earthquake in the history of Armenia. It was December 7, 1988, at 11:41 A.M. Her fifth-floor apartment had begun to shake. Susanna grabbed her daughter but had taken only a few steps before the floor opened up and they tumbled in. Susanna, Gayaney, and Karine all fell into the basement with the nine-story apartment building crumbling around them.
“Mommy, I need a drink. Please give me something.” There was nothing for Susanna to give. She was trapped flat on her back. Feeling around in the darkness, she found a jar of blackberry jam that had fallen into the basement. She gave the entire jar to her daughter to eat. It was gone by the second day. “Mommy, I’m so thirsty.” Susanna knew she would die, but she wanted her daughter to live. The two were trapped for eight whole days.
“Mommy, I’m thirsty.” Susanna remembered a television program about an explorer in the Arctic who was dying of thirst. His friend actually slashed open his own hand and gave him his own blood to drink. Susanna found a piece of shattered glass. She sliced open her left index finger and gave it to her daughter to suck. The drops of blood weren’t enough. “Please Mommy, some more. Cut another finger.” Susanna has no idea how many times she cut herself. She only knows that if she hadn’t, Gayaney would have died. Her blood was her daughter’s only hope to quench her thirst.
Beneath the rubble of this fallen world, Jesus pierced His hands. In the wreckage of a collapsed humanity, He ripped open His side. You see, His children were trapped in sin and thirst, so He gave His blood. With His blood, and by His Spirit, He quenches the thirst of all who come to Him and believe in Him.
“He who is a believer in Jesus finds enough in his Lord to satisfy him now, and to content him for evermore, for he finds in Jesus such a spring of joy, such a fountain of consolation, that he is content and happy. Put him in a dungeon and he will find good company; place him in a barren wilderness, he will eat the bread of heaven; drive him away from friendship, he will meet the “friend that sticks closer than a brother.” The heart is as insatiable as the grave until Jesus enters it, and then it is a cup full to overflowing. Only Jesus can quench our thirst.” (MIKE CLEVELAND)