Yesterday I was able to sit with a trusted friend, and have very meaningful conversation that was beneficial to us both. When I am able to sit with this particular friend it reinforces how critical it is to connect with other women. How our thinking is challenged, and how we can have such healing conversation that we go away feeling deeply refreshed. Remembering it is iron sharpening iron, as we allow transparency to be foremost in our minds, sees us taking down walls that have gotten in the way of so much. Sometimes they are newly erected walls, but often they are old and crusted over with layer upon layer of debris. The debris might even look appealing at first glance, but when you get closer you see them for what they truly are, hidden sorrow and pain.
As I write this, I am imagining women of an earlier time coming to the well, not just for the much-needed water, but also to talk to other women. I find it interesting that they would gather around a well, as if what they needed from each other was as life sustaining as the water itself. They needed to draw from each other, much like they would draw from the well, hoping that what they would find was life giving, refreshing, and worth the effort that they had made. It is this natural connection that women have, that enables us to start conversations with other women, knowing that we will find common ground.
There was a woman we have read about in scripture that did not have this apparent connection with other women, for she came to the well when it was deserted, and she was alone. John 4:7 NKJ “ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
I love this scripture because this woman had no idea that she would encounter Jesus when she went to the well that particular day, but God knew. He knew that what He was offering would be her salvation, literally speaking. She was thirsty for something that was more than water; although she was not even aware of how desperate she was until Jesus began speaking to her.
Read John 4:5-42 for yourself, see how her encounter with Jesus changed her life forever more, and you will be blessed when you read of the symbolism of the well.
As believing women, we have the ability to give out what has been given to us each time we encounter someone who is thirsty to know truth, and we give it.
John 4:13-14 NKJ Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst again. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”