She was a whore.
(By some standards)
She definitely got around.. A lot.
So much so, that she didn’t want to be seen in public.

I won’t get into semantics about what she was or what she wasn’t.

But I do know this..

She was the worst of the worst. No self-respect.
She didn’t deserve it.
Nobody with any good sense would ever be seen with her.

Well… that’s who Jesus chose to meet at a well on the outskirts of a town in Samaria.

He let this undeserving outcast know that he knew all of her crap.
All of her darkness. All of our secrets.

Then.. he let this woman know… he was there.. for her.

To offer her some peace. Not to show his disappointment, but rather give her some comfort.
Give her some hope for tomorrow.
And let her know that no matter what anybody else thought of her, she was so special in his eyes.

This “whore” went back and shared her joy, and her heart, and her newfound peace with everyone around her, and ended up bringing many others to meet this amazing man.

I bet that many of these people that she influenced were the very same ones that were disgusted with her. Ignored her.
Judged her.

Well..
I used to be a bad guy.
Let me say that again.
I used to be a bad bad guy.

I won’t go into detail, but man, I did a lot of rotten things. Really rotten.

I also experienced the shame and the guilt, the anxiety and the depression, and the enemies and loss of trust that come with that kind of life.

People had lost faith in me, and so had I.

But here’s the thing..
I met this God. Not the God that I had been told about in some of the churches I had been in, who was ready to push me aside as an outcast..
but rather a God that saw my value. A God who realized my potential for a great story.

He understood that nobody helps a drunk like an ex-drunk.

Nobody helps the lost like someone who used to walk around completely blind.

Nobody helps the broken, like a man who used to be utterly broken.

Where I am today is nothing short of miraculous.

I don’t believe a day goes by that I am not amazed at how I came from such a place of hopelessness, to such a place of restoration.

Today, one of my greatest passions is finding the biggest losers and the most defeated. Those full of fear. Those who are lacking joy, or have no joy at all.

I want them to know that restoration is more than possible, and that their value is no less significant than the woman at the well.

See.. there are people who feel like they’re not good enough.
Feel like they’re too dirty.
Feel like they’re too uneducated. Too afraid.
Too lost.

My belief is that no one can help these people, quite like those who have been saved from nearly drowning in those same waters.

It wasn’t perfect christians who saved my life.
It wasn’t the judgmental.
It wasn’t the ones who whispered behind my back, because of the dirty roads I chose to take.

It was a few humble, amazing individuals, who explained to me that they had been exactly where I was.
But they had been rescued.

It was at that point that I was able to go, “Hey, if you were restored, then perhaps I have been wrong about my future. Perhaps I can be restored as well.”

It was people like that promiscuous woman at the well, who saved my life.

The dirty. The lost. The overlooked.

The broken.

Thank God for them.

Cause nobody helps the broken, like someone who used to be broken.