10/18/2026
Sunday October 18th, 2026
Hope Restored ✝️
The brokeness and pain you are feeling now could be the very thing God uses to bring you closer to him, to heal and restore you to new life in him, and to help others going through the same struggles.
Psalm 23:3 -
“He restores my soul.”
An example of this in the bible is the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:1-14.
While journeying through Samaria, Jesus encountered a woman at a well. Jesus broke the cultural norms of this day by talking with her. Not only was it unheard of for a man to speak to a woman in public, but Jews also hated Samaritans.
This woman, who had five husbands and was now living with a man who was not her husband, was also rejected by her own community, which explains why she’s drawing water at the hottest time of the day. Yet Jesus not only spoke to her, but discussed deep life giving truth with her.
In her encounter with Jesus, the woman found acceptance, forgiveness, grace, and a new beginning. Jesus did not define her by her past but as someone made in God’s image and worthy of love. Our past mistakes don’t have to determine our futures. God always offers the chance for a new life.
Jesus valued the woman enough to go find her. This was a woman so looked down on by her community that she preferred to face the noonday sun over the judgment of other women at the well. Yet Jesus cared enough to seek her out at that particular well during that particular time. Jesus knew the woman would be coming, and he went there to meet her. You need to know that God values us and searches for us just as he did for the woman at the well.
If Jesus had stayed within the bounds of what society considered acceptable, he would not have spoken to her. Likewise, we also have to be willing to get outside our comfort zones to reach those in need of God’s love.
Jesus helped the woman come to a better understanding of who God is. The woman’s conversation reveals a few clues about her beliefs about God.
She thought of God as confined to a place—this mountain or in Jerusalem. She thought of the Messiah as someone who might perhaps show up one day—not someone that could change her present reality. Perhaps, given her background, she thought of God as being for other people—not for someone like her. Jesus reveals truth to her: that God cares more about the hearts of his worshipers than the place they worship; that salvation is immediately available; that God cares enough about her to sit down on a dusty well in the heat of the day and have a conversation. It changed her life.
Some truths about God:
~ God is trustworthy.
~ God is a rescuer.
~ God seeks after the lost.
~ No one is beyond the reach of God’s love.
~ No sin is so big God won’t forgive.
Jesus did not judge the woman, but neither did he excuse her sin. Jesus lovingly confronted the woman’s past and offered her a chance for a new beginning. In Jesus, this woman found a way to begin again.
Today you could be struggling with your identity, self worth, broken relationships, your marriage, or maybe you have just lost hope that your life could be anything different.
Do you have an area in your life of brokenness that you need God's healing hand?
Do you have a testimony of something that was once broken in your life that God has restored?
What is a verse or scripture you are clinging to right now?
