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Teri Sinnott explores her personal connection to the woman at the well. 


God always meets us where we are at. Isn’t that amazing? He never stops calling us to Him. Never gives up on us. Like the prodigal son; there is joy when we come home. 

I had an experience a few months ago that has just stuck with me. My husband and I were watching The Chosen series as our date night activity. Before we put the show on, he wanted to share a song with me that he had heard at his men’s group. The song is “Woman at the Well” by Olivia Lane. If you have not heard this song, stop what you are doing, play the video below, and then continue reading.

 

 

 

The song hit me in so many ways. It literally brought me to tears. When we put on the next episode of The Chosen it was episode 8, the episode about the woman at the well. 

Coincidence. 

Nope. 

Nothing is a coincidence with God. 

It was God calling me. 

He was reminding me that I was the woman at the well. 

I had a night almost exactly like what she describes in this song. I remember everything about it like it was yesterday. 

When I first started to attend church again and dive into my faith, I felt so much shame. I knew that I had not been following God for quite some time. Honestly, I am not sure if I was ever really following up to that point in my life. 

Sure, I was always a kind person. I treated people well. I cared deeply about others. On the outside, I was a good person. 

But on the inside, I had sinned more than I could bear to share. My list of mistakes was a mile long. I felt completely unworthy of a God who loved me so much. I felt as if I didn’t deserve His love. I didn’t deserve what Jesus did. I was worthless. I was a horrible, hopeless sinner. I had done things that I hated myself for. I didn’t even want God to love me because I just simply didn’t deserve it. I was so devastated at the road I had taken for most of my life. The shame I felt kept me completely buried under it. I had no idea how to dig myself out. Honestly, I didn’t want to. 

Here I was, in my 30s and realizing how wrong I had been about so many things. Realizing that my heart was so empty and broken. And it was all of my own doing. 

I sat there watching TV after putting the kids to bed and drinking wine. Sitting in my own self pity and hatred. And I started to cry thinking about my mistakes. I had just finished a bible study that talked about asking God for forgiveness. 

So, as I sat there with my wine glass in hand, I decided to turn off the tv and pray.

Click to tweet:
I started to pour my heart out to God. It wasn’t like I was telling Him anything He didn’t already know. #catholicmom

Before I knew it, I started to pour my heart out to God. It wasn’t like I was telling Him anything He didn’t already know. But once I started, I couldn't stop. I cried. I sobbed and I apologized for all I had done. And in that moment I felt His love. I felt this amazing sense of peace. I could feel His love for me. I could feel that not only could He forgive me ... He did. 

He was waiting for me. All this time, waiting for me. 

Waiting for me to put my pride aside, to realize where I had gone wrong, and come back to Him. To truly come back to Him. It would still be some time before I took those sins to Confession, but that night, something inside me changed. My hatred for myself went away. I started to see myself as someone worth saving. Someone with renewed hope. Someone who knew that I could follow God. I was not too far gone. I could be forgiven. And I could use my experiences to bring others to God. I was not a lost cause. I was not the sum of my mistakes. I had a purpose. 

That song: every time I hear it, that night comes flooding back. The night that was a turning point in my life, in my faith. My eyes well with tears. But not sad ones, but tears of joy. Knowing that I was the woman at the well. 

Jesus knew everything I had ever done. 

He loves me anyway.

Jesus and the Woman at the well

 


Copyright 2022 Teri Sinnott
Images: Carl Heinrich Bloch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons