The desert was living up to its reputation, it was noon and the heat was overwhelming, the smell of damp dust choked her throat, her vessel getting heavier with each step " It's worth it, I can't stand the look on their faces anymore."
Some called her "harlot", others would not give her the decency of even looking at her. Mothers told their daughters that this is that kind of woman. Their daughters spit on her as she walked by. The noon day heat was easier to bear than the whispers of other woman at the usual meeting time- when the air was cooler. Everyday she visited this well, and everyday her heart came away as dry as before. Nothing- or no one could fill the void deep inside her. But this would not be like the other times she visited the well. This time, a Man was there.
It was a long journey for this handful of men and their Master was tired. He sat down on the well. They called it Jacobs well. He was just so tired, and this noon-day heat was gloating in its strength.
He saw her coming from a distance. It was strange to draw water at such a hot point in the day but He knew. He knew everything about this woman.
"What are they doing here?" She breathed deeply and thought about turning back. The emotion was strong, but so was this heat. She just wanted to get this chore over with and draw back into herself. Into the place she couldn't be hurt by what others thought of her. By now some of the men in this group had gone into town. There was just one Man left. "I can do this" she told herself, "there is only one of them, and he will probably leave as I approach anyway." So many had deserted her before, why not this man who probably knew who she was?
"Will you give me a drink?" His voice shattered the silence and she almost dropped her water vessel. He was a Jew, she could see that now. She was a Samaritan! They would rather ask a camel for a drink than to share a vessel with a Samaritan. Who was this man? "Do you know who I am? How is it that you ask me for something to drink!" Warmly he looked at her, his gaze penetrating deep into her heart, loosing something that was bound for years. " If you only knew of the water I have to give to you, you would be asking me for something to drink." Now she was confused, "But you don't have anything to use to gather water from this deep well, are you saying you are greater than our father Jacob who made this well? He drank from it himself!"
Looking into the deep well he smiled, and turning to her he said "“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”'
"Never thirst again?" she thought, "I would never have to come to this well in this heat, never have to suffer ridicule from the people here, never?" Her heart beat wildly at the thought and before she knew what she was saying, because his words still baffled her at how this could be true, she asked "Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
"Go and bring your husband" he said to her, his eyes were too much for her.
There. There was the blow. She thought of how silly she had been to open herself up to a Stranger, and no less a Jew. Now he would know her. There was no chance of this life giving water now. With her head bowed she whispered "I have no husband."
“You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
"Someone told him, He knows, but why must he put it back in my face?" She whispered to herself. She thought that changing the subject to something more interesting than her self would get his mind off of her past, but to no avail. He answered her with ease when she mentioned the prophets, and after explaining the Truth to her she was frustrated. She said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am He.”
For that moment, everything stopped. She could hear and feel nothing but the beat of her heart beating so wildly that she thought she would faint, spilling over right into Jacobs well. It's Him.
Just then the other men came back, they were talking about what a great deal they had just got on the food they carried in their arms, but their mouths hung open when they saw her. No one dared ask her what she wanted or why He was talking with her. They just stood there.
Reality came to light, she wasn't dreaming. It was Him. Before she realized what she was doing she put the vessel down and ran into the town. She no longer cared what they thought about her, they had to see Him. “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. They found Him and believed. It didn't matter what the woman had told them, they had seen Jesus. They had heard Him speak the words of Life and believed. She was never the same again, her heart found the Living Water it was thirsting for...
*This story line was taken from the story of the "woman at the well". It's based on John 4.
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