“I stood in Shawna’s kitchen, looking at photographs on the refrigerator as she expertly pulled shots from the espresso machine in the corner. The motor hummed and the caramel-colored liquid trickled out. She poured it into a cup of ice before topping it off with a swirl of canned whipped cream and a quick finish of sprinkled cinnamon.

“Handing the glass to me and keeping one for herself, she led me into the living room and we took our perch on the well-worn, deep purple couch. Kaleb was stirring in his crib upstairs, not yet asleep. And Shawna began asking the kind of questions you ask someone in the throes of a brand-new discipleship-based friendship.

“Where are you from?
Do you have any siblings?
What is your major?
Tell me your life story.

“This happened once a week—this sharing of learned life lessons. Week by week, we sat there swallowed up in her couch, reading different parts of the Bible alongside commentaries for explanation and insight and application. Shawna knew well that she didn’t have to be a Bible teacher in order to disciple-teach.

“Natural conversation followed. The simplest ones that always lead to the deeper ones. The ones that have grit and meaning.

“The ones that stick to your bones.

“‘Dig your well,’ Shawna said one day. I had been lamenting my struggle through singleness when the pastor’s wife [who would later become my best friend] taught me her most important life lesson. It was a reference from Psalm 84:6 and the people who pilgrim-pass through the Valley of Baca and make it a spring—or, as it can also be translated, a well. The pilgrims traveling through drew water from that spring-well before continuing on their way.

“‘Dig your well for yourself,’ she said, ‘and also for the people who follow along after you. And do it now, while you are single and can dig a little bit deeper and linger a little bit longer.’ She had a point. I really had nothing else to do but pass the hours drinking coffee, studying for exams, working my part-time job, and dreaming of how the rest of my life would shape up.

“Shawna had been digging her own well for years with regular quiet times, letting God fill it with the water of His Word. And on those afternoons, I sipped her handmade iced coffee and drank from her dug-out-well wisdom.

“Of all the things she taught me, that was what stuck. To dig down—and dig deep. Every day, coming to God’s presence whether or not I wanted to, whether or not I had the time or the inclination. In the good days and the ones full of tears. Dig in and dig down and dig deep into His Word. So that when life got busy, and there was marriage and a mortgage and little ones at my morning-feet, I could draw from my dug-out-daily well.

“And when I walked through the desert, I could drink from it.”