Sunday, September 2, 2012

Day 68: For the Woman at the Well

Well hello again!  It's good to be back.  As you may have noticed, I took a break from writing for about a year, but I'm back to finish the project.  The Lord brought a lot of things across my path last year that required my full attention, and though I missed blogging and running, I knew that at such a point in my life, it had to take a back burner.  Thank you so much for being patient.  I'm back in action, ready for a new season of writing and activism for the glory of my loving, merciful Savior!

Running for Ruby is going to take a bit of a different spin.  I am as passionate as ending the sex trade as ever,   but I also want to so more than just ask for donations. I am asking the Lord to reveal another way to help.  I have a few ideas, and I would love for you to join in with me!  I will still continue to post stories of victims of human trafficking for the sake of education and prayer.  I will also include, hopefully, interviews with some people on the front lines of this issue.  Finally (and this is what I am most eager for!) I am going to highlight fair trade products in an attempt to make a sort of shopping guide, so that when you purchase every day necessities, you can help victims of human trafficking at the same time!  I mean, we need the stuff anyways, so why not help people when we buy it?!  The Lord has laid it on my heart to adopt a new lifestyle, in which I buy everything certified fair trade from organizations and one-for-one companies.  I'd love for you to try it with me!  I'll still leave the World Vision link up if you'd like to donate there (I never did reach my fundraising goal), but fair trade shopping is another great way you can donate while receiving the products you need at the same time.

This post is two-fold; it's the end of one season and the beginning of another, and I'm so thankful you're here for the transition.  I finished my project with a run of half-marathon distance Thanksgiving morning of 2011.  For the first time in my life, I think I truly grasped the meaning of Thanksgiving day.  This final post is a tribute to a woman who knows the depths of thanksgiving in her heart more deeply than most.  I've known her story my whole life, and I am so thankful that I know the man who saved her. This one is for him.  Thanks for reading, and may the Lord make himself known to you.

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—  although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Many Samaritans Believe

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
John 4

13.1 miles for the Woman at the Well
365 miles for Jesus Christ, for his kingdom and his glory

Ruby
Sandra
Berchewkan
Mani
Sophea
Janna
Syowai
Ka
Stephanie
Alex
Mai
Khamta
Adaze
Jayati
Boloztuya
Prettygirl
Theresa
Esperanza
Xuan
Geeta
Debbie
G.Q., N.H., and S.O.
Anuradha
Veronica
Martina
Shauna
Rosa
Jaycee
Charlotte Awino
Kikka Cerpa
Jana
Lannie
Samira
Mari
Sarah
Mao Mao
Keisha
Brittany
Gabriella
Akemi
Olga
Alissa
Karina
Maira
Amita
Josephine
Sabine
Mylee
Samantha
Kurshida
Colegiala
Bharti
Irina
Neary
Jane
Yeu and Dep
Asha
Shauna

the Woman at the Well

Because He first loved me,
Stephanie

1 comment:

  1. steph, i think you should def keep this up. it's a great blog and a great way to put the word out there.

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