Mtr Mary Trainor

I heard a story from the Bible when I was just a little girl, about a broken-hearted woman who met the Savior of the world…*

Dear friend,

I suspect you’d believe me if I said that I follow all of the Tucson Lost/Found Dog sites on Facebook. As many as I can, anyway. Heart-wrenching stuff on a regular basis.

Yesterday, one in particular caught my attention.This person “found” a pitbull and is now trying to find the owner. But the odds are high that no one is looking for this dog, that she was simply dumped.

The poster writes: “She seems scared and has scars. Seems like in her short time she’s had a rough life.”

Thought it was just another story, that the preacher man would read … but I think that woman might be me. 

The Office Gospel today from the fourth chapter of John offers a favorite passage of mine: Jesus—a Jewish man in Gentile territory—approaches a solo woman who comes to a well at midday.

We can tell she’s a bit of an outcast since most of the women come to fill jugs much earlier, when it is cooler. And she has a checkered past that Jesus already knows about.

When he says what he knows, she sprints to the city where she tells the people:

Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?

It’s one of the things I love most about Jesus, how he finds the broken, the endangered, the misfit, those at the edge, or at the end of their rope. Those who seem scared and have scars. The abandoned. 

He found me, too, scared and scarred, and whispered the truth in my ear. I have never been the same.

Mtr Mary

* Source: Musixmatch. Songwriters: Jesse Reeves / Olivia Lane / Steve Fee. WOMAN AT THE WELL lyrics © Centricity Songs, Lane Train Music, Liv Write Play Publishing, Creed Love Music.