Da Bucket Lady

I'd like to write a book called Confessions of a Recovering Bucket Lady, but my publisher is afraid no one would know what it was about. So let me tell you so you'll know in advance. When the book comes out, I'm sure you'll rush out to buy your copy. At least that's what I plan to tell my publisher.

I firmly beileve God deliberately designed all human beings with a hole in their the size of the Grand Canyon. It's what Blaise Pascal termed "the God-shaped void" - a place that can only be filled through a personal relationship with our Creator. All of us sense that emptiness within, and we are driven to fill it. But rather than turning to God for fulfilment, as we should, many of us run everywhere else instead. We go out into the world with our little clamouring bucket, and we hand it to the people around us and say, "Fill me. Fix me. Love me. Make me feel okay." We turn to our parents, our husbands, our children, our friends, our church, our career, expecting them to be to us what only God can be. The result is what I've termed Da Bucket Lady syndrome.

Da Bucket Lady always thinks the answer to her emptiness is right around the next corner. So she tries to get her bucket filled with accomplishments - both personal and professional. She tries to fill it with the perfect house and the perfect circle of friends. Da Bucket Lady might even look good, because she's just got to have great clothes, the right hairstyle and makeup. She's busy at church, trying to fill her bucket with Christian rituals and church busywork. The reality is she will never rest until that hole is filled... and it can never be filled with a bucket.

Jeremiah 2:13 puts it this way: "My people have committed two sins. They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Da Bucket Lady tries to fill her life with things that can never satisfy.

Now I'm going to tell you the truth. And if you can get past the fact that it's gonna hurt your feelings, I think you can get set free in a big way before this chapter is through. First, I want to acknowledge that it's entirely possible for your to have people in your life who couldn't care less about you. You hand them the bucket and they toss it aside. But the painful truth is you are probably surrounded by people who are a-bailing' and a-bailin' just as fast as they can. But they are never going to fill that hole. Never.

I got an e-mail the other day from a woman who had heard me speak recently and was ready to retire as her mother's bailer (Your bailer is the person you expect to bail and bail until you get your fill.) She said her entire childhood was devoted to filling her mother's bucket: getting straight A's, being the star of the school play, becoming a cheerleader and the class president, etc. Then she worked hard to get into a prestigious university so her mom would have bragging rights. When she graduated, she landed a high-profile, high-paying job and lavished her mom with gifts. She literally drove herself to physical collapse trying to make her mom proud. Trying to fill her mother's bucket. Of course, it was never enough. Her mom was the same unhappy person. She was just an unhappy person with a lot to brag about.

Who do you expect to be your bailer? Let me give you some clues: Who has the ability to make you angrier than anyone else? Who has the power to disappoint you most profoundly? That's your bailer.

Who do you like to brag about? That's your bailer too.

My ministry is to women, but whenever I speak, there's invariably a man or two milling about, running the sound system or organizing the food service, etc. I'll never forget walking out of a conference late one Friday night and hearing a male voice behind me. I turned around and there was this six-foot-something man with tears streaming down his face. "Can I help you?" I asked.

"That women you were talking about in there? The Bucket Lady? That's my wife. I love her, but she's killing me. No matter what I do for that woman, it's never enough."

Wow.

If your husband had the opportunity and the courage to follow me out the door... do you think we'd have the same conversation? Something to ponder anyway.

Sometimes we women tend to think men aren't quite as smart as we are. Let me tell you, your husband might be a whole lot smarter than you think. Maybe he's spent years and years trying to fill your bucket. But he figured out, long before YOU did, that he was never going to fill that giant chasm in your heart. So he put down the bucket... and picked up the remote.

The next time you see your husband staring blankly at the television, just remind yourself: "That's one real smart cookie sitting there."

Here's another clue: If your husband would rather be anywhere else doing anything else other than be with you, you're probably a Bucket Lady. (Then again, maybe you just married a jerk. One can never tell for sure. But promise me you'll pray about it, okay?)

Will you be smart enough to let your husband off the hook? To let him officially retired as your bailer? Maybe you could buy him a gold watch and host a special ceremony. I'll bet when you stop expecting him to fill you, he might come out of hiding. Then again, he might stay hidden behind that remote - or newspaper, or office work, or golf game - forever. That's okay. You don't need him to fill you anymore.

And I'll tell the single ladies a little secret. Men are born with an internal Bucket Lady Detection Device. They see a Bucket Lady coming at them - I mean a woman who's just trying way too hard to get their attention and win their love - and something inside them starts screaming, "Run for your lives, men! Run for your lives!" Now, they might dally with you before they run for the hills. But you can take it to the bank: He aint' gonna stick 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.

No doubt you remember the story of the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the well. (If not, go read John 4:4-43.) This Bucket Lady had five husbands, plus she was living with another guy, and we can just imagine how many boyfriends were thrown into the mix. Talk about "lookin' for love in all the wrong places, lookin' for love on too many faces"! Now, you would think if it were possible for a man to fill a woman's bucket, one of these men could have gotten it right if only by accident. I mean, at some point, wouldn't the law of averages have to work in her favor?

The problem is, it's not possible.

So she meets up with Jesus. And he tells her the same thing he tells the rest of us Bucket Ladies: "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".

Then the story includes a fascinating little detail: "Then, leaving her water jar..." (v. 28).

Did you catch that?

She left her bucket at the well!

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 don't have to live like a Bucket Lady anymore either.

Extracted from:
This isn't the life I signed up for
by Donna Partow