The Unloved Woman
Updated: Sep 16
Jade, I am almost four decades old, and I just realized that I have spent the majority of that time being the unloved woman. I have heard a couple of sermons on this, and they usually revolve around Leah being unloved by Jacob. Leah had been used by her father and unwanted by her husband, while her younger sister Rachel, who was beautiful and loved, became jealous of her when God blessed her with children. That is not my story per se, but my recognition of me being the unloved woman is real. Yet God brought me to the remembrance of the woman at the well who met Jesus. Although our backstories are not similar, I recognized this pattern among me and many other women I have met. I will explain, starting with the passage below:
John 4:7-26 NKJV
[7] A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” [8] For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. [9] Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. [10] Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” [11] The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? [12] Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” [13] Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” [15] The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” [16] Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” [17] The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ [18] for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” [19] The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. [20] Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” [21] Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. [22] You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. [23] But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. [24] God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” [25] The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.” [26] Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”
There is a lot to unpack here. But I want you to know that woman at the well was an unloved woman. She was ashamed of that too, because she told Jesus at the well that she had no husband. Shame will cause you to hide aspects about yourself, but Jesus is the truth and knows the truth. He told her about her five husbands (and also knew of the man she was living with) without shaming her, and she thought that He was a prophet. Now I thought about this, because I thought He revealed the truth to her just to prove that He knew that about her situation, but now I don’t think that was the case. In actuality, He revealed that to her because He wanted her to know that she had been seeking true love and had been receiving worldly love, which had never filled her cup. But Jesus was there to satisfy her soul, by filling her cup with living water. And that is what God’s love is: living water that will lead us to never thirst again.
You will learn that God is love (1 John 4:16 NKJV) and God is a spirit, and that spirit dwells inside of us if we accept it. But we have to seek after it. And maybe that is the lesson of the woman at the well; she was seeking after love, and Jesus found her and gave her the truth about what she had been missing; what she had been truly seeking after.
She did not have to hold on to her shame and guilt for having five husbands and living with a man that was not her husband. All she had to do was keep seeking love, and Jesus would find her. She did not know He would be at the well, waiting for her. Her story shows us that it not the shame that defined her; it was her recognizing and accepting Jesus when he told her who He was that defines her character. She was receptive, and she realized that she was in the presence of the Word made flesh. Her heart was already soft enough to receive the truth about Jesus, despite her faults, and He was able to reveal Himself to her.
Jade, if you have an encounter with Jesus, will you recognize Him? Or will you be too consumed by shame, guilt, or the apathy that this life throws at us to know that the Lord is ever chasing after us? I have spent a majority of my life consumed by shame and guilt; feeling that I was not worthy of the love I so desperately craved. I have been in a number of relationships, and whether romantic or platonic, they never filled my cup like when God finally softened my heart and released me of my shame.
But that begs the question: if God is the only one who can change hearts, what is the bridge that connects walking in shame to walking in the mercies of the Father and experiencing His love? For it says in Jeremiah 24:7 NKJV:
Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.
This puzzled me for some time. Yes there is grace, but you have to accept grace, and for the longest time I refused to do so. But before I noticed the dynamic shifts in my life, I made a conscious decision to help my mother (your grandmother), in a way that God moved me to do so. This leads to the passage below:
II Corinthians 1:3-7 NKJV
[3] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, [4] who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. [5] For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. [6] Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. [7] And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.
In a sense, when I made the choice to help my mother despite my own circumstances—in essence give back to her (on a much smaller scale) in the way she had given to me—my life immediately began to change. I am of the firm belief that if you help others, despite your circumstances, you are in essence walking in faith. You should know that faith without works is dead (James 2:17). Even though I knew a lot of the Bible, I didn’t begin living it until I made the decision to stop focusing on my problems and began to help my mother. In return, God began to draw me closer to Him, and I began to seek after Him as a result. I didn’t know that was happening when it happened, but before I knew it, my life had completely changed, and so had my heart.
I had been like the woman at the well… going from relationship to relationship (romantic and platonic) and never having my cup filled. Instead, I was experiencing loss and heartbreak on a regular basis. But just like the woman at the well, I never stopped searching for love. Yes, I had reasons to be ashamed, and yes, I didn’t know if I would ever experience the peace of God from knowing that I was loved. But Jesus met me and revealed Himself to me by giving me you. You were my encounter with Jesus.
One more thing I noticed about the story of the woman at the well. When the disciples came back and found Him talking to her, they marveled that He was speaking to her. But when they inquired if He had eaten, Jesus stated doing His Father’s work was more fulfilling than any physical meal could be. Her seeing Jesus for who He really is and accepting Him was everything to Him. Because she was receptive to the truth, she received a gift of true love; a gift that even the disciples did not understand in full at the time. She received living water because she kept seeking love and didn’t give up.
And that is what I want to instill in you, Jade. Don’t give up on love. I’m not talking about the world’s love, which uses the words “I love you” but are fake and hollow. Instead, seek after true love, and if you make some mistakes in the process, God will still meet you where you are. Like Jesus said, we just do not know the day or the hour, and until then, I will try to be an example of His love to you. I love you Jade, and God loves you as well.
