The Woman at the Well Revisited - What if...

How many times have we heard the story of the Woman at the Well? How many times have we come away with another perspective of the story, another view of this encounter the Christ had with this un-named woman? The prevailing message is that salvation is available to everyone. No matter how unworthy a person may feel, no matter how unworthy we may judge a person to be, salvation is there as much for her or him as it is for you and I. During His short time on our earth, Christ's message was always about the underdog, the down trodden. He reaches out to us, and all we have to do is accept his hand.

A much smaller perspective, is one you and I have experienced so many times in large and small ways. What if we did/did not go, what if we had/had not stayed 5 minutes longer, what if we had/had not taken that road. Chance meetings and encounters that bless our lives or change them forever have to do with a pause in our step, a moment of indecision, choosing one path over another. We certainly do not always know what we have missed out on, but we surely know what we have found. Did we listen to what God had to say? Did we make our decision based on His will?

What if this biblical woman had been detained, or sent another on her errand, or gone earlier to the well, or later? We certainly would have missed out on an enduring message in the New Testament. But the Woman would have missed out on an amazing opportunity to speak with Jesus, to hear His message first hand, and to be one of the first to go and spread the word that the Messiah had surely come and was waiting for those who would only go and listen and taste of the Living Water. What if?

What if?

For the Woman at the Well

What if the sandal strap I worry into place each dawn
Had broken on that day?
What if my children woke with fevered brow
Or begged that I should stay?

What if the man –the father of my youngest child
Had beckoned me to bed?
What if the potter’s wife had cornered me
With idle gossip she’d been fed?

What if one of any thousand things had held me fast
Like brambles from the edge of Jacob’s well?
But no! For once all wind blown circumstance stood still
And set me free so I could later tell

That just as Rebecka’s waxing moon assures renewal
I found the Pledge of Living Water waiting me
Then ran to tell my thirsty townsmen, “Come!
And drink His Word until your soul is free!”

I realize, now, "what if" is a phrase of man
That each nth of every second is in God’s Plan.
Thus, I stood there with the Christ at Jacob’s well
In the eye of God before man’s measured time began.


Cynthia Ann Conciatu © 2004

Last Sunday I posted another story about the Woman at the Well - click here if you missed it.

Enjoy your Sunday!