Where are you thirsty for God’s refreshment? Through Rainy Night, Etaples and the hymn Even Me, this session explores divine blessing as living water. Participants are invited to breathe, reflect, and receive God’s showers of grace.

Text: Even Me by Elizabeth Codner (1860)

Use this guide for prayer and contemplation. Read slowly, pausing as needed for silence and reflection.

Opening

Let us begin with a few deep breaths. As you draw in each breath, ask God to bless you.

Take that blessing in through your breathing, and claim it.

Stay here a moment.

Reflection on Contemplative Prayer

This will be our focus today: drawing in the blessings of God.

Saint Paul of the Cross said: “Sometimes in prayer, God communicates to the soul, all at once, God’s treasures of lights and heavenly graces.”

He continues: “Imagine that you have in your hand a golden dish, that you pour into it the extract of the rarest and most exquisite perfumes, and that you steep into it a fine cambric handkerchief. This handkerchief will yield a delicious and inexplicable odor, composed of all the perfumes. It is thus my soul feels when I receive those intimate and hidden communications.”

God’s communication can be like an exquisite perfume in a golden dish—something you long to draw into your lungs and let fill you with goodness. And sometimes, as Psalm 63 says, we are a dry and weary land where there is no water—thirsting for just one drop of rain. So deep can be our desire for God’s presence.

Text for Reflection

[Text source: “Even Me” by Elizabeth Codner (1860)]

Lord, I hear of showers of blessings
Thou art scattering full and free.
Showers the thirsty souls refreshing.
Let some drops now fall on me.

Even me, Lord, even me.
Even me, yes, even me.
Let some drops now fall on me.

Holy Spirit, be present as you pray these words. Let them become the simple cry of your own heart for refreshment.

Artwork for Prayerful Reflection

Rainy Night Etaples, by William Edouard Scott

As you gaze at this painting, let it become a meeting place between your thirst and God. Notice the abundance of water, the air heavy with moisture, the lights reflected in pools along the road, and the figures walking on through the rain. Imagine yourself there—walking through showers of God’s blessings.

Reflection Questions

As you breathe in and out, what blessing do you sense God offering you right now?

Where in your life do you feel most thirsty for refreshment?

When you look deep into the painting, what do you notice first—light, water, road, figures—and what might that be saying to you?

If you imagine yourself as one of the figures walking along, what do you carry in your body and spirit today?

What blessing do you want—and what blessing do you need?

Imagine that needed blessing as a single drop of water falling on you; where does it land, and what does it awaken in you?

As you pray, “Let some drops now fall on me,” what words rise up for you after that line?

What do you hear God saying to you about your thirst and the refreshment you seek?

What response—one small, faithful step—feels invited in you as you receive God’s blessing?

Closing

God of living water, when our souls are dry and weary, let your refreshing rain fall upon us—full and free. Give us even one drop of your blessing, and help us receive it with open hands. Amen.