Bucket Lady

I came across this story in a book I read this weekend. It is paraphrased and put somewhat into my words. It just really spoke truth into my heart about my own insecurities. I dont know if this is true or a struggle for anyone else, but I wanted to share it anyway.

Bucket lady?
God designed all human beings with a hole in our heart the size of the Grand Canyon. We sense the emptiness within and are driven to fill it. But we don’t always turn to God for fulfillment, instead we look everywhere else. We go out into the world with our bucket and hand it to the people around us and say “FILL ME. FIX ME. LOVE ME. MAKE ME FEEL OKAY.” We feel like we need to justify ourselves and give the world a good reason why it should allow us to take up breathing space. Sound familiar? We want someone to love us and we think that means we have to do all these things to make ourselves lovable.
The bucket lady always thinks the answer to her emptiness is right around the corner. She tries to fill her bucket with accomplishments, friends, even staying busy with Christian rituals. The truth is she will never rest until that hole is filled … and it can never be filled with a bucket. The bucket lady tries to fill her life with things that can never satisfy.
A hard thing for me personally is knowing that it is possible (maybe even inevitable) to have people in my life that could care less about me. You can hand them your bucket and they toss it aside without a second thought!
I don’t know how true this is, but I thought it was worth sharing as well. “Men are born with an internal Bucket Lady Detection Device. They see a bucket lady (a woman who tries too hard to get their attention and win their love) coming at them and something inside them screams “run for your life”. Now they might dally with you before they run for the hills. But you can take it to the bank: He ain’t gonna stay around long enough to fill your bucket. The only thing he’ll do with your bucket is reach into your heart, pull out what little you’ve got, and leave you dry”.
The Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the well gives practical advice for bucket ladies (or men). She meets Jesus and he tells her “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."(John 4:13-14). Then notice what happens in verse 28 “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town”.
Once she allowed Jesus to fill that hole in her heart, to place within her that spring of water welling up to eternal life, she didn’t need her bucket anymore! She didn’t have to live like a bucket lady anymore. You and I don’t have to live like one either!
My desire it that I daily remember to ask Jesus to so lavish me (and you) with His love, his approval, his acceptance so that we no longer need to frantically search for love, approval, and acceptance from people.