Do you feel broken? Thinking no one could ever benefit from hearing your story. Let us discuss about a woman that most likely could have related to how you’re feeling right now. 

Consider this scenario for a moment:

She thought no one would be present at the well right now, so she could go and be there alone. She had heard others whispering behind her back and had seen how some would glare at her. Today was not a day she felt like subjecting herself to this. 

As she walked, looking down at her feet dusty from the dirt road it didn’t compare to how dirty she felt in her heart. The years had left her feeling so broken and lost. She looked up and saw someone in the distance sitting by the well. It was a man. “Will you give me a drink?” He asked. He looked physically tired and she felt so spiritually exhausted and empty. 

She was alarmed because she was a Samaritan and this was Samaria which was a region that most Jews avoided. This man was an obvious Jew and had not only walked right through the area but had stopped and now had approached a Samaritan woman. The man was Jesus. We know the story and we also know that this woman was living her life in sin. Taken from the story of the Woman at the Well.  John 4:1-42

A Samaritan was culturally considered to be impure and with her being a woman with a sorted history and reputation most considered her even less valuable than a typical Samaritan. A vessel that many would toss away but Jesus valued it as a treasure. 

God loved her and He loves us. We are not talking about a surface love. This type of love runs deep and nothing can stop it. Our cultural differences, our standing in society, and even our sinful nature cannot and does not stop or change God’s love for us. In fact He wants to heal our cracks and mend our broken pieces together again. He wants to renew us into a vessel that He can fill us up with His Holy Spirit and use us to pour out His love, blessings and life out onto others. 

There is a Japanese art called “Kintsugi” where broken vessels are taken and mended with precious gold and yet the cracks are not concealed. The vessel is made whole again but the prior damage remains evident. By applying gold to these vessels they then become more valuable than ever before. The damages are made stronger, they shine brighter and now the vessel can be used for the purpose it was created for and often are displayed with great glory. 

Our Creator is also our Healer and He has perfected this art like no other. He takes His loving hands and gently mends our cracks, puts our broken pieces back where they belong and does it all with His comforting hands which are more precious than gold. God takes our brokenness, our cracks  and transforms them into the most powerful part of us. The scars of our brokenness become our story. We have to be broken and mended by Him, made stronger, perfected to fully be filled and used for His purpose and sent out to display God’s glory. 

Then and only then can we show that God rules over darkness, God’s grace defeats the grave, God is our redeemer over the ruins of our lives. In the bible we see time and time again that broken people were selected by God as the vessels to use for His plan of redemption. Moses was a murderer, Jacob was a deceiver, Rahab a prostitute, David an adulterer and murderer, Paul a persecutor of Christians. God used them through their weaknesses, not in spite of them. He is the same God today that He was then and He does the same for us today. 

We allow our past to limit the work that God can do through us. Many of us can relate to her response in John 4:9 “you are a jew and I am a Samaritan woman, how can you ask me for a drink?” So many of us have had similar thoughts. Saying in prayer how unworthy we feel and know that we are. We don’t understand how God can use us for anything when knowing all that we have done. 

He does know all we have done and yet He has the desire to love us and use us in ways we cannot ever imagine. Our past and our failures do not compare to the wonderful amazing plan of God. When taking a glance in our own rearview mirror don’t dwell there and gaze because we must keep in mind that we are now a new creation in Christ Jesus. Our road to this point may have been paved by our past but once we become God’s child then He is now in charge of the road repairs forward if we allow Him to be. 

We can also allow our past to limit our future. In John 4:11 she mentions about how deep the well is. Many of us have chased wells that were empty even after we were saved. When we have chased paths down empty wells we were certainly left less than satisfied and often found ourselves in total misery. We sometimes struggle with fears such as rejection, lack of acceptance and allow those fears to be the driving force in our lives. We allow them to keep us from pursuing His greater calling for us. Thankfully “But God” He with His great mercy reaches down into the pits of those empty wells and snatches us, rescues us and draws out life from that empty well. 

To those reading this if you feel like you’ve fallen into an empty well or maybe yours has ran dry please know that there is ONE who can rescue you and restore you. As He shared with this woman in Samaria He is the spring of living water and will quench your thirst. A well requires us to work to obtain a drink but a spring  flows freely with no effort on our part. 

Jesus so gently in John 4:16 made a request to the woman in Samaria that is actually calling out to us to address those inferior avenues we have taken. He is familiar with our broken past and like here He wasn’t trying to pronounce condemnation but to clear through the murky topic of her past to let her know there was a way to put it behind her. There is always a way to put our past behind us and move forward to get back on track and pursue His plan for our lives. 

We have all traveled through storms, had difficult seasons in our life and yes searched for water in a few wrong streams. We have even fell and a few times jumped down a few empty wells. Instead of attempting to fill our pain or longings ourselves we need to turn to Jesus Christ to fill our lives. We often don’t understand that Jesus uses broken people and we turn to chasing other avenues to provide self care. These do not lead us to a good or healthy place. We need to learn that Jesus Christ is the right way and the only way and turn to His word, the Bible and to Him in prayer. 

Our past is often used by the evil one against us. We have to recognize the lies we believe about our past. In John 4:11-12 she said to Jesus “are you greater than our father, Jacob?” It can make us think of the times we have struggled with a similar thought. “Are we greater than our past?” Shame is like a slithering snake that tries to define us and is used by the snake we know as the ultimate evil one to keep us down and to stop us from pursuing and completing God’s plan for our lives. God’s desire and His ultimate gift to us is for our pain to refine us into the precious jewels that He sees us as. 

All through life we find that stories are an integral part. From our childhood through our older years through our pain, excitement and fear, it is stories that give us perspective. Stories are the universal way we relate with others. Our stories engage others to connect with us and it is through stories that we connect the past to the present and beyond. It is the stories that teach lessons, infuse inspiration and stories have the power to change lives. Stories we are gifted with can change our lives and by us sharing our stories we never know who may need it in their life. The story God is writing with our life, with YOUR life is NOT meant to be kept under lock and key. 

We are called to share our story. We are so often haunted by our past. What we have done, our experiences and what has been done to us by family, friends and even fellow Christians. Those things have tainted our view of God’s grace. We may love Jesus Christ with all of our hearts, faithfully serving Him but keeping the most powerful tool we have under lock and key. Our testimony, our story, never sharing or using it to reach others for Christ. We were cleansed from the sin but we kept on the shackles of shame. 

We all have stories to tell, some seem more involved than others but each one is important to someone and God can use them all to touch someone’s heart and bring them to Him. In each story it evolves to a place where Jesus rich in His mercy reaches out and shows His love for us. He asks us for a drink from our deep empty well where we are residing and then He replaces it with a life-giving spring where we thirst no more.  

Just like the woman at the well, God’s love propelled us to leave our old life and begin a new. We need to share and tell the world of how our new life is now anchored in the love, grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Just like the woman at the well who ran off to tell her town about her own story John 4:39-42, we too have the power to transform lives with the Gospel of Truth, by sharing how we have been transformed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.