The Samaritan Woman

She came to the well at noon, alone, to avoid the other women, because her life of five husbands and a man who was not her husband had made her an outcast (John 4:6-18). Jesus, a Jewish man who should not have spoken to her, asked her for a drink and then offered her living water. Their conversation moved from her thirst to real worship, and she realized she was talking to the Messiah (John 4:25-26). She left her water jar, ran to the town that had shamed her, and became its first evangelist (John 4:28-30, 39). If you matched with the Samaritan Woman, you have a past you have worked to hide, and you are about to discover it does not disqualify you, it qualifies you.

You feel things deeply and you connect with people fast, even the ones who have written you off. You expected God to be one more person keeping score, and instead you were met with a conversation that did not flinch at your story. Once you taste that, you cannot keep it to yourself. The people who shamed you become the first people you run to.

With people you are warm and disarming, able to reach the ones everyone else avoids, because you have been the one everyone avoids. With God your faith started the day someone knew your whole story and stayed in the conversation. You were not lectured. You were offered water, and you have been pointing thirsty people to the well ever since.

Under pressure you hide, scheduling your life around the people who might know. The turn came when Jesus named her whole history and did not recoil. Being fully known and still wanted is what set her running. Your past is not the obstacle to your testimony. It is the testimony.