The Woman At the Well

For ten months I have been withdrawn. Withdrawn from church, from faith, from people. Almost like a spiritual numbness you could say. I have watched the world spin almost out of control between politics and disease and racial tensions. At the same time I have endured personal struggles that I have managed to just shove away. I didn’t want the pain or the conviction of any of it. I have been void of any sympathy or empathy or understanding or submission through it all. During quarantine times I found a false peace, a complacent serenity if you will, in gardening or reading. I didn’t worship, rarely picked up my Bible, and only prayed before bed over my daughters’ well being. That was the extent of my time with the Lord.

I am ashamed to admit it. I put God at arms length.

But He never left me. He never does.

So often I relate to David: imperfect, messy, and running to God through the trials. Other times I relate to Martha: doing what is socially expected or acceptable. I have even related to Paul: I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound (Philippians 4:12-13).

But in this moment I am the woman at the well.

Everything that I have ever done wrong, every sin, every hurt, every mistake, every everything has managed to creep in. And I mean every one, from the time I stole a dollar out of my dads piggy bank for a Slurpee at age 8 to allowing the busy to run my life at age 38. Those memories of sin and hurt sat right behind the numbness, the false peace, the complacent serenity and it has reared the ugly head of shame. And that is why I want to sit at the well and draw my water alone. No one wants my junk and frankly I don’t want anyone to have it.

But that isn’t how God works. AND I AM THIRSTY.

Jesus tells the woman at the well, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst,” John 4:13-14. I am, and have been, the woman at the well. I have been drinking complacent waters trying to quench a thirst that can only be satisfied by living water. He knows my sin so why do I squash it like he doesn’t? Jesus told the woman her sin and she confessed. Why am I any different? Do you know what is even more miraculous? Jesus worked through this messy and imperfect woman. Through the woman’s confession of sin, through her testimony, others BELIEVED in the Messiah.

So often we think, I don’t want to be the woman at the well. Oh but I do. I want to be God’s vessel. I want him to use my sin and imperfectness for HIS GLORY, just like He did her. She was available and willing and God used her.

I am David. I am Martha. I am Paul. And sometimes I am even Mary.

But today I am the woman at the well. And Jesus is the Living Water.