I
think about a girl I knew when I was growing up. We were not really friends but I knew
her. In Junior High, she started
changing for the worse. She became upset
easily and overreacted to things much of the time. I remember her not having much self-esteem. Her mother worried about her all the
time. In high school, things got
worse. She scared off most people and
therefore didn’t really have any friends.
By her junior year, she found a group of friends who mostly drank, did
drugs and got in trouble a lot. Her
mother tried so hard to help but this young girl seemed bent on destroying her
life. When she turned 19, this girl got
pregnant, married the dad, gave birth to a son and then got divorced--all
within one year. Her drinking and
irresponsibility became so bad that the grandmother eventually got custody of
the little boy. The people in my small
town looked down on this girl. People
would say that she was no good and wondered what happened to her that made her
turn out that way.
Years later, we all found out “what
happened.” Through a series of events,
it was discovered that this girl had been sexually abused by a step-dad for a
one year period when she was 12. All of
a sudden, things began to make sense.
This horrific event had not only taken away her innocence but also had
taken most of her self-worth and dignity.
Gone were those childhood dreams of being swept off her feet by some
prince charming. They were replaced with a hopelessness of living
in a cruel and ugly world.
What
amazes me about the Woman at the Well story in John 4 is how Jesus looked at
people with a different set of eyes than the average man or woman. Most people saw the woman in this story as
one who had little worth and value. This
was confirmed by the number of men who took her in only to divorce her shortly
afterwards. The eyes of judgment were so
painful to this woman that she chose to do one of her hardest chores in the
heat of the day, just to avoid those stares of disapproval. But Jesus saw in her a precious child who
carried some deep wounds from the cruelty and ugliness of life. And he gave her new hope by helping her
discover a new way to live. He told her
of a new path which involved following Him right into the arms of a loving and
merciful God. This God valued his
children and would walk with them through every part of life to help them
conquer the harshness and cruelty that can come to a person.
This
story makes me think of the girl I grew up with. I wonder if anyone has ever looked at her
with understanding eyes and told her there was a better way. The challenge of the Woman at the Well story
is a challenge to look at people differently.
Can we replace judgment and scorn with compassion and
understanding? Is there someone in your
life who lives with a hard exterior but deep down needs to know about a God who
is merciful, who loves and who walks beside?
It is a message that has been given to us a resource to changing
lives. All it takes is to look at others
differently.
- Tim Baugh
