Again this is based off of a story from my dad's sermon. This is part one of "The Samaritan Woman." You can read about it in John 4.
Johanna clutched her head covering tighter and walked even faster. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, hot and painful, reminding her that nothing could ever be right for her again. Dust clouds billowed up ahead and Johanna jumped to the side, stumbling and falling. The rider only laughed mockingly and whipped his horse faster. A woman, an outcast, scorned and mocked to tears. Unrespected, unloved, unwanted. What good am I anymore? She walked wearily to her house and hoisted a large clay jug to her shoulder. As the sun slowly appeared behind a curtain of fluffy clouds, Johanna followed a trickle of women leaving their city to fill buckets with cool water for the day ahead. She continued up a hill, averting her eyes from needle sharp stares and biting whispers. Bits and pieces of conversation leaked out from secluded groups of women.
“What does she think she is doing here?”
“…mmm what more can you expect from someone like her?”
“Don’t you know, rumor has it she’s sleeping with Ahmon the butcher, and they're
not even wed,” the woman sighed with mock sympathy.
“Not that it would make much difference if she did,” another woman added. “How many husbands did you say she’s had?”
“Oh at least five. Takes them in for a season and then throws them out like food gone rotten.”
“Or maybe it’s the other way around,” the women tittered.
Johanna cried out like a wounded lamb. She let her jar fall to the ground and listened to it shatter as she ran away from the well. Her heart thudded in her chest like a hammer striking down again and again. She looked back to see pieces of her jug scattered near the well, the broken pieces like her broken heart.
