Before we came to the Ozarks, Joy and I lived in Collinsville, Illinois—a sturdy little town with brick churches, big trees, and, to this day, the strangest-tasting water I’ve ever swallowed.
Technically, it was award-winning. The city even bragged about it: best-tasting water in Illinois. But it didn’t matter what the certificate said hanging in some office downtown—our tap water had the tang of old pennies and chlorine, and I could never bring myself to drink it without making a face. The locals were divided into two camps. Half of them swore by it like it was straight from a mountain spring. The other half wouldn’t touch it unless it came in a plastic bottle. We sided with the bottled crowd. Living in the parsonage behind the church, we hauled gallon jugs home by the dozen like we were preparing for a drought.
Now we live down a gravel road in Stone County, Missouri, where the trees lean close and the land hums after rain. We’re near the lake, wrapped in quiet. And for the first time in my life, I’m learning the wild particularities of well water.
We haven’t even been in our remodel project for a full year, and already the water has made its presence known—mostly in our laundry room.
See, for Joy, doing laundry isn’t a chore. It’s a joy, fittingly enough. She finds purpose in it. Cleanliness, order, the rhythm of folding shirts and matching socks—it’s her domain, her canvas. So when her brand-new Ozark laundry started coming out with rust-colored blotches, it wasn’t just annoying. It was deeply unsettling.
Her washing machine, though loyal through many moves, had seen better days. Still, the stains felt like betrayal. Clothes aren’t cheap, and laundry, for Joy, is a kind of hospitality—how she loves the people under our roof. We replaced the machine, hoping that would solve it. It helped a little. But the real problem wasn’t the washer. It was what was flowing into it.
The well.
We sent off a sample to the county, and it came back with a smiley face and a warning: technically safe, but hard—harder than a conversation about tithing on Stewardship Sunday. Full of scale. Full of grit. Full of tiny minerals that cling to everything they touch. You could call it water with character. You could also call it a slow destroyer of appliances.
Today, we started the cleanup. A friend came over to help us install a sediment filter and a water ionizer—something to kill off any bacteria and clear the path for clean, safe water. It’s the first step in reclaiming not just our laundry but our peace of mind.
Around here, there’s a term some folks whisper with a wink: “water people.” That’s what the transplants call the locals who’ve been drinking untreated well water for so long they’ve grown… different. The kind of people who stare too long, or hoard tires, or yell at clouds. I’m half-joking, of course. But there’s folklore in every hill country, and the well water seems to carry its own version of myth and memory.
It made me think of my grandparents in Iowa. Their farmhouse well sat about a hundred feet from the hog lot. The water tasted like iron and fertilizer, but we drank it anyway. There was no bottled water back then—just rusty faucets and tin cups. They sprayed DDT on the fields like it was sunshine, and we didn’t ask questions. Looking back, it’s a wonder we didn’t all turn fluorescent.
And yet—somehow—we made it.
Still, I find myself grateful for the chance to make our water better. Because there’s an old saying passed around these hills:
“You never know the worth of water till the well runs dry.”
I saw it firsthand a few months ago when Lefty’s—a local well company with more opinions than tools—came to inspect our pump. They fired it up and ran it full throttle. Within four minutes, the well ran dry. I stood there, watching it sputter into silence. A kind of dread settled in my gut. Then, just five minutes later, it was full again. Like nothing had happened.
It felt like grace. Like watching mercy refill a space that had gone completely empty.
And that’s when it hit me—this isn’t just a story about water. This is about everything.
We don’t truly appreciate the gift until it’s gone—until the lights flicker off, or the furnace won’t kick on, or the fridge holds nothing but mustard. We don’t see the abundance we live in until it slips through our fingers: peace, health, friendship, the sound of someone else breathing in the bed beside you.
We think of provision as what God gives. But sometimes it’s also what He withholds—so we’ll look down into the dry places and remember what it is to thirst.
We’re not there yet. We’re still figuring out this well water. Still cleaning filters. Still learning how to make the hard water soft. But I have a feeling, once we get it dialed in, it’ll taste like a blessing. Not because it’s perfect—but because we’ll know what it cost to get it there.
The truth is, I’ve started praying differently lately. Not just for what I want, but in thanks for what I usually forget to name. For water, yes—but also for grace. For the God who fills up dry places. For the quiet, underground aquifer of His mercy, still flowing beneath our tired feet.
Because some blessings don’t come in thunder.
They come in drips, and buckets, and gentle, steady streams.
And when they do, I want to be the kind of man who doesn’t miss them.