How to Find Hope in Your Thirst: Your Samaritan Moment
Mar 08, 2026The Reading: John 4:5-14
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and 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.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
I was recently invited to a retreat and given the opportunity to speak on one of my favorite topics: Dreamwork. It felt like the best of both worlds; I could participate fully in a retreat I didn’t have to organize or lead, and I could also share a subject I’m deeply passionate about.
During the final session of the long weekend, we were asked as a group to recite the story of The Woman at the Well. Before these stories were written down, they lived as an oral tradition, passed from voice to voice. Our facilitator began the story, and we were invited to offer our own remembered versions.
I felt a little embarrassed. I’ve read this story hundreds of times and even helped lead a retreat centered on this very passage. But when I began, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink from me?” my mind suddenly went blank. I stumbled through, “If you knew who I was, you’d ask me for a drink of water,” and then lost my place entirely. Thankfully, someone gently picked up the thread and continued. A few others fumbled too, and each time, someone else stepped in to help.
The facilitator smiled. “When you are alone in a hospital room, or in a dark place, remember that you know the stories of the Bible, even if you can’t recall every detail. God is with you, no matter what. And if you ask for help, someone may come to your rescue. Remember this.”
Her words stayed with me. They reminded me that thirst is not a failure of faith but an invitation. God often meets people in their thirst, not after it’s resolved. Thirst isn’t something to hide or feel ashamed of. We all thirst for meaning, for purpose, for connection, for God. And we all fumble sometimes. It’s okay to ask for help.
We ended the session with communion. For those who are hungry for God, we offered the bread of life. Then, for those who are thirsty, the cup of salvation. It felt like the perfect symbolic ending.
Thirsting for God often draws us toward God more honestly than certainty or abundance ever could. Our longing becomes the doorway. Our emptiness becomes the invitation. And our shared stories imperfectly remembered, yet lovingly rescued, become the way we carry one another toward the well.
Katie Rea, WTC Writing Coach
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