Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Division (07/13/23)
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TITLE: Separated No More, a Monologue | Previous Challenge Entry
By Laurie Kiel
07/19/23 -
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Division. I hear that is quite the problem in your current time. Whites against blacks. Republicans against democrats. Liberals against conservatives. Proflife against prochoice. Men against women
I know what that's like.
You may know me as the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman. How well I know division. It was our way of life.
Jews hated us Samaritans. Jews would go miles out of their way just to avoid going through Samaria. Did you know that in my story in your Bible it said Jesus HAD to go through Samaria. “ So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria.” John 4:3-4 (NIV).
Although of course I didn't know that at the time I lived it.
Let me tell you my story, a story of separation and restoration.
Every day, I would go to draw water at the town well during the hottest part of the day.
Hottest? You echo in disbelief. You heard me right Hottest! Who in their right mind goes and draws water during the hottest part of the day? The answer is — no one. And that was exactly the way I liked it.
I separated myself from the other women in the village, those who from their words and expressions I knew judged me for my sin and those I was afraid would judge me. If I rejected them first, they could not reject me.
That special day I headed to the well and stopped in astonishment. There was a stranger at my well. A Jew? And not only a Jew but a Jewish male. And he was asking me for a drink of water.
A Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman? I had heard and believed it that Jewish men didn’t even talk to their wives in public.
And what unbelievable thing was happening to me? Not only a man talking to a woman, not only a Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman but a rabbi talking to the town sinner?
An invisible wall separated us.
Brick by brick Jesus took down the wall between us as he spent time talking to me. Did you know our conversation is the longest one-on-one conversation between Jesus and another person recorded in scripture.
I had always thought of myself as separate, unloved, divided from everyone around me. I think I was even divided inside myself.
Jesus told me something amazing. He told me that He was the Messiah. The Messuah! According to scripture, I was the first person he told.
Not only a man talking to a woman, not only a Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman not just a rabbi talking to the town sinner. But the Messiah talking to a woman where he knew everything I had ever done and loved me anyway.
His love tore down the wall of division, letting His living water saturate my soul.
Do you feel separated from God, from others, maybe even from your true self, the man or woman God created to be?
Come to Jesus, the One who knows everything you ever did and loves you anyway.
Let Him tear down the wall separating you from God, from others and from even your true self, and let His living water saturate your soul.
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