4/12 Life in the Parkie Lane

Just Another Miserable Day      (Pt 1 of the Woman at the Well)                                                        

Consciousness slowly oozed into her system as she lay in bed, until she realized that it was too quiet. The kids were into something.  She forced herself out of bed and began looking for them, her bare feet padding softly across the dirt floor.  She found them playing outside. As soon as they saw her, they cheerfully greeted her and asked for something to eat. The kids needed her attention. 

She squinted grudgingly at the noonday sun. Like it or not she had to begin her day. She trudged to the community well for the morning water.  Her disheveled hair, weary eyes and wrinkled clothing revealed how she felt on the inside - just another miserable day.

She was tired, tired of the hopelessness, tired of the whispers from others, tired of caring for the kids, tired of another drunken sot of a man in her life.  Why couldn't she seem to get a man worth anything, she wondered. 

She plodded along past all the women who have long since started their days.  She looked up to see a Jewish man sitting on the well. She fussed under her breath about how some man always has to park himself in the way. She wondered whether she should approach him.  The last thing she needed was to have some judgmental jerk give her a hard time. She tried to avoid eye contact as she prepared to draw some water. 

He used the need for her help to get a drink to begin talking with her. He looked like the needy one, yet He offered her exactly what she needed.  The conversation woke her up physically, as well as to her spiritual need.  She had been yearning (thirsting) for a change!

Jesus answered her prayer and her need in the most unlikely timing and circumstance.  It turned out that this definitely was not just another miserable day.

"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw."John 4:14-15

© copyright Kevin T Boekhoff


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