Grieving Our Hard Stories - a 6-Day Devotional on Living Griefনমুনা

That Day at the Well

There’s a picture on my wall that takes my breath away. It’s a painting of a woman seated beside Jesus at a well.

She sits in the heat of the day, staring at her feet, her head hung low. And Jesus - because He’s always in tune - is turned toward her. His eyes locked on the woman beside Him.

You know the story of the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4. This woman, all alone, makes her way in the middle of the day to the well on the outskirts of town.

We know very little about her. We know she’s been married five times, she’s alone, and we can guess, based on how she interacts with this Jewish man at the well, that she is skeptical of His intentions.

I wonder what her heart must have felt like; the years of loss and brokenness piled up throughout her history. The heaviness of being discarded, unchosen, left behind. The disappointments, misunderstandings, and misrepresentations. Her loss of community, identity, and belonging.

The trauma she must have carried inside herself. The dreams she held as a child and then watched fall through her fingers. Unwanted goodbyes, painful endings, and private pain she had never said out loud. And while she grieved, I imagine the people around her carried on with their lives.

It’s what happens, isn’t it? When our loss doesn’t fit into the traditional box of grief-worthy experiences, we experience deep loneliness and painful isolation. We can be drawn into believing we don’t have the right to grieve.

But Jesus

But there’s Jesus - right beside her. His heart is full of love and a deeply personal understanding of her sorrow - making time to wait for her. To show her she mattered and that she was seen and known by Him. She may not have known she was grieving, but Jesus did. He saw what she couldn’t articulate. He saw what others didn’t.

I imagine she could see it in His eyes. I like to believe she felt from Him the compassion we all need when we face unwanted goodbyes. When the losses add up, and it all feels like too much. We have a soul need to be understood. To be seen.

And on this day at that well, Jesus saw her. He understood.

He told her everything she had ever done (John 4:29). And, somewhere in that life-changing conversation, Jesus sets her free.

Free from the sin. Free from the loss. Free to move forward.

It’s what He does. Jesus waits for us, and then, with a profound understanding of all we’ve been through, He seeks to set us free.

Our Samaritan sisters' history didn’t change - she still carried a grief story. But on that day, the Bible tells us she ran back to town, leaving her water jar at the well, proclaiming the Good News.

She had been set free!

Freedom doesn’t look like a past that disappears. It looks like a future unrestrained by the pain of it.

We are seen and set free by the same man Who sat with our Samaritan sister that day.

While some may not understand, Jesus does. And He is waiting for us to look back up to Him for the freedom He offers.

What do you carry to the well with you today? What grief story do you hold? And what needs to happen today to turn that over to Jesus and experience His freedom?