The Woman at the Well

I am speaking to you, my fellow women. How are you today? Is it a good hair day? Is your skin cooperating? Is your eyeliner even? Did you find something you liked to wear? If you’re anything like me, you may have brushed your hair out, skipped the eyeliner, and chosen whatever will cause you to sweat the least in this crazy heat wave we’re having. But that’s just me.

I’m thinking about body image today, because it’s summer and most people are letting it all hang out and I can’t help but notice and think. Summer isn’t the greatest season for me, because I can’t hide under cozy sweaters and leggings and scarves. Let me be upfront with you: I really struggle with body image. Growing up I was compared to my younger sister quite a lot, who had pearly skin, long eyelashes, wavy hair, and endless limbs. I looked like Mowgli from The Jungle Book, with a matching haircut. Even now, I’m quite aware that I don’t have the “ideal” body type. I’m short, and any weight I gain goes directly to my stomach, which lately has been happening quite a bit. I try to avoid full length mirrors, because I know when I look in them I’m usually not happy with what I see.

Being a woman is hard. Harder than any man could ever truly recognize. All day long we’re compared. Compared to our friends, family members, co-workers, magazine covers, celebrities, the list goes on and on. Maybe it’s you yourself who does the comparing. Maybe it’s conscious or sub-conscious. But it’s there, and it’s exhausting. Even the most beautiful, put-together women have something about their body they wish were different. Women are constantly searching for the next thing to “change” their look, whether it be a diet, work-out regimen, new makeup, or more clothes. I have done this myself, and the search is never-ending, let me tell you.

What does this have to do with a woman at a well?

One day, Jesus was traveling through Samaria and came upon a woman at a well. This wasn’t any ordinary woman, but a Samaritan, part of a people whom the Jews despised and avoided at all costs. Not only that, but she was unmarried and an outcast, demonstrated by the fact that she was drawing water alone, a social activity that was usually done together by a group of women from the households in the village. Jesus knew all this, but chose to dialogue with the woman anyway. Jesus knew she was struggling. She had been married five times, and the sixth man she was living with currently was not her husband. I’m sure that when she looked in the mirror, she too struggled with what she saw. Unmarried, unloved, unhappy with her image as it was, provoked to seek out affection wherever she could find it.

I think a lot about this well the woman sat at. I’m sure she walked there in the midday heat, dogged by her feelings of loneliness, acutely aware that she “wasn’t good enough,” and “didn’t measure up.” Just that fact that she was there alone was probably enough to bring up old memories, comments from other women on the street, the ways she had been treated by her ex-husbands. I’m sure she dreaded having to do this every day. This well was a source and constant reminder of her unhappiness. Sister, what is your well? What causes you to doubt your worth? To be unhappy with what you see in the mirror? Is it issues with your weight? Is it comments on your appearance from parents or a significant other? Is it constantly comparing yourself to women in Cosmo? On Instagram? From lifestyle blogs?

Consider what happens next in the story: Jesus asks this woman for water, and she responds with surprise. How is it that she, so unworthy a woman, and a Samaritan at that, should be called upon to give this strange Jewish man a drink? Jesus says to her, “If you knew who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The Samaritan woman is rightfully confused, because this ordinary well is all she knows, and questions Jesus further saying, “Sir, the well is deep, where does one find this living water?” And here, here is where Jesus banishes every comment, every negative thought, every feeling of unworthiness the woman has ever felt. He replies, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty. The water that I will give him will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The Samaritan woman responds with what should be the response of all women everywhere, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” And Jesus gives her himself.

I struggle with body image every day. It’s a battle that is sometimes won, sometimes lost. Even after the Samaritan woman found her Savior among that trip to the well, healing wasn’t instantaneous. I’m sure she found the courage to return home and leave the man she was living with, but internally still struggled with feelings of unworthiness, perhaps for years afterward. What I’m hoping you take away from this is the knowledge that Jesus is waiting at that well for you. He is sitting next to that source of your sadness and offering you the living water that refreshes and fulfills. Next time you’re accosted by thoughts, feelings, or words that drag you down, remember that Jesus transcends every single one, meets you in your pain, and says, you are worthy, you are good, you are beautiful. You, just as you are, are enough. Remind yourself of this, every single hour, every day, anytime the feelings of doubt creep in. Write it on your mirror, tell every woman and girl you meet, and slowly, surely, we’ll begin to know it.