Have you ever looked at your life and thought to yourself, “There’s got to be more than this?” “This” being the way your life feels, the way your life looks, the way you’re treated by those around you, the daily little choices of mundaneness or sadness or hurt or mediocrity, the level of happiness you feel at any moment of the day.

I know of a girl who had given up on being anything more than what had happened to her. You see, she was born in the wrong place, loved by the wrong men, made the wrong choices, and found herself wanting to avoid the people in her life rather than to face them. She recognized a need in her life for more, but had come to expect disappointment and heartache as her every day normal. She thirsted, but she could find no way to quench her longing to be known and to be loved.

And then she met Someone. She met a man who went out of His way on His journey just to meet her. She responded as most of us do when we’re told someone can make our dreams come true: she questioned this guy to find out if he was being for real or if this was just another guy saying all the right things to her.

Maybe by now you’ve figured out who I’m talking about. She’s called the Woman at the Well or sometimes the Woman of Samaria.

Did you think it could have been you though? There was a time in my life when I could have been this woman at the well. I can remember a time in my later college years when I’d been loved by all the wrong men, felt like I’d been born into the wrong family, and would rather have avoided the entire world and everyone in it if I could have. My entire life seemed to revolve around this idea that I was unknowable and unlovable. It felt like everyone who’d known me abandoned me or hurt me. And these thoughts and feelings left me with an inner thirsting soul that could not be satisfied.

When Jesus met this woman at the well, she was trying to fulfill her own thirst and Jesus recognized her need before she ever admitted it. He told her, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.”

This woman responded (basically) saying, “Yeah right — living water. With no bucket and no way of getting it out of the well. Uh huh…”

A lot of times we find ourselves doubting God’s ability because we don’t see the “how.” He says He can meet and satisfy us where we are, but we look around our little cubby holes of heartache and bad choices and we just don’t see His plan being feasible. Would we like our lives renewed? Would we like our deepest, thirstiest desires met in ultimate satisfaction? Would we like to be happy? YES! But we doubt that we can ever make it there, even knowing a God of incredible miracles.

But Jesus had pursued this woman this far and He wasn’t stopping at her doubt. He explained what He could offer and told her to go get her husband, getting immediately to the root cause of her thirst.

“I have no husband,” she responds.

Jesus tells her, “Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.”

As hard as it is to be honest with everyone who loves us, it’s extra hard to be honest between ourselves and our God and this thought process really isn’t logical. We know ourselves and our choices and our secret thoughts. God knows ourselves and our choices and our secret thoughts. And yet, we cannot seem to admit to ourselves that we’re where we are and who we are as a direct result of the choices we’ve been making. We’re thirsty because we’ve been trying to draw water out of our broken, barren wells. And it isn’t until we can admit our cracks, our choices, and who we are to ourselves and to our God that He’s able to even offer us His living water.

So, instead of admitting who she was, this woman at the well attempted to avoid His comment, asking if Jesus was a prophet. The two spoke back and forth as this woman tried to figure Him out. Eventually, she asked who He is:

“The woman saith unto him, “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when He is come, He will tell us all things.”

Jesus saith unto her, “I that speak unto thee am he.” The disciples interrupted here, but they couldn’t keep THE MOMENT from happening. We see her leave, go to the city, and tell everyone that she had previously been avoiding about the Saviour she had just met. Her deepest desire, to be known, had been met. We see this in her testimony to her neighbors:

“Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” And here’s what’s absolutely amazing about the transforming power of becoming a believer: when she admitted to the people who already knew who she was and the choices this woman at the well had been making and then we see her tell these people what Christ offered, the testimony is powerful. The Bible tells us that some of these townspeople believed on Christ just because of what this woman had said! It does also say that some believed after they’d seen Him with their own eyes, but some lives of her townsmen were transformed just from her story!

So maybe you’re thirsty. And maybe you haven’t been making the right decisions. Maybe you were born into a family that doesn’t love or accept you. Maybe you’re in a place of deep regret and you’re thinking that there’s nothing more to life than what you have become. I have one word for you today: hope. There is still hope.

It’s never, ever, ever too late to change who you are or to change your choices. You can still be happy! You can still be pure. You can still dream and love and change. But it’s never going to happen if you don’t make that first choice: stop drinking from your own well. It’s dry! Admitting your need for change is the hardest part of changing.

Are you willing to take a moment right now, look into your mind and ask yourself, “Am I happy?” The woman at the well was thirsty. She knew enough of truth to keep up a religious conversation, but she also knew her place was away from prying eyes and ears of the holier-than-thou crowd. She went to a well to meet her physical need, but denied her emotional and spiritual need through 5 failed marriages. There was hope for her when she chose to believe the words of the Saviour. 

There’s hope for you, too.

Love, Meghan