“Go and Live Like Someone Who Knows They Are Fully Loved By Their Creator”

Psalm 139:1. “O, Lord, you have searched me and known me.”

There was once a woman in need of a good man in her life. She’d been looking for him for some time now. For reasons stemming back for years and years, she had come to believe she really didn’t belong in the world; she felt alone, afraid, and viewed herself as a misfit, lacking whatever it took to be like the people she admired.

Her husband didn’t really see her anymore, and when he did, it was only to tell her how much she disappointed him. She only had one thing to offer men, she realized, not only remembering but believing the old saying her mother taught her when she was almost an adult. “Men are only after one thing.”

Well, she had one of those things. It had been tucked between her legs for as long as she could remember.

Her mother had been right. There was no shortage of men who would take that thing. She roamed the streets offering it up, thinking that surely there would be one man who would see the rest of her, the entire person, body, mind and heart, attached to the spot between her legs.  That part had so much to offer the rest of the world. Did those men know she could sing like one of God’s choir in the heavens, that she was a compassionate nursemaid when a middle of the night sickness struck? She wouldn’t leave the bedside except to fetch a cooler cloth or some broth. Did they know she had dreams of the great love inside of her being returned to the same degree she felt? And like that would ever happen.

So she settled down with just one extra man instead of many. He seemed to like what was between her legs, her availability (her husband was a traveling merchant),  and the fact she didn’t feel the need to go on and on about herself, investing in gossip and the like. Maybe, she thought, if she just concentrated on one man, he’d come to see the rest of her. But he didn’t. He only saw his own reflection and she soon disappointed him because deep down, he really didn’t like who was, either. She ignored the signs, his chilly demeanor, his critical spirit, his failing to show up as promised. She tried all she could to please him. The more she tried, the more she cried out with her actions, “See me! O, see me, please!” the more he despised her.  He left her, kicking at the mass of bleeding ribbons she had become, a sneer of disgust upon his mouth, the look in his eyes spitting disdain. Who would want a pathetic, pleading woman like her?

So she decided to find solace in that place between her legs, something she deemed sacred years and years ago but had become nothing more than a cheap meal offered to the most indiscriminate and unappreciative of diners.

“I guess this is it,” she whispered before heading out to the other side of the city, away from her husband who was home that day. “Just one more. One more time to find the one who will see the rest of me and that will be it.”

She walked to the north side of the city, covered in her finest robe and veils until she settled herself under a tree beside the market place.  She took out a piece of polished bronze and examine herself, pretending to admire the reflection she loathed. It never failed to attract men and soon one sat beside her and offered her a dried apricot which she accepted with a smile.

Two hours later, they were having sex behind a boat-builder’s establishment. “This is it,” she kept thinking, feeling like an animal waiting for the one that had crawled upon her back to finish. “This is the last time, for surely that man who sees me is just my wishful thinking.” And he continued what he was doing back there as the rest of her cried and cried and cried. She had no face. No face at all.

****

They were caught by a group of officials who had come to see the boat-builder about his lack of ability to pay his taxes. Looking for assets to seize, they found a whole lot more. One official recognized her and dragged her by the neck of her gown and her hair to the center of the marketplace.  

The charges were plain, they’d witnessed the crime of the woman, and anyone so wanton, so filled with lustful desires, clearly cared not for common decency, “And no shame!” one man cried. “No shame at all!” People like her were menaces, they would bring “the judgement of our Holy God upon us all!”

No, no, the woman cried inside of her. Don’t you see? I am nothing but shame. I am nothing but a person yearning to be treated decently, to be seen, to be seen, to be seen.

Well, everybody was looking now. Including a young man in the farthest corner of her field of vision where she now lay, cheek upon the ground, the sandal of the man who had grabbed her heavily upon her neck. The young man leaned down on his haunches and looked at her. He nodded and sought her gaze and once found she could not look away. He began scribbling words into the dust of the ground as the men around her, more and more of them, began to gather stones. They shouted their judgments at her as they picked up rocks, placing each one upon an accumulating pile.

“Adulteress!”

“Whore!”

“Home wrecker!”

“Prostitute!”

“Skank!”

“Shameful!”

“Dirty!”

“Foul!”

“Animal!”

“Pathetic!”

“Disgusting!”

“You do not deserve to live,” the man who kept her captive leaned down and hissed in her ear. “And before God, I shall see that you don’t!”

“I know,” she whispered. I know. I know all of this is true. Every word spoken is true.

The young man looked into her eyes again and she could somehow hear his thoughts. “I see you, dear one.”

He walked out of her field of vision and tears began to collect then tumble onto the dust. She had been seen, but like the others, he was gone.

*****

“Who condemns this woman?” A strong voice, used to preaching to multitudes and being heard by each one present, resounded.

“We do!” her captor cried, pushing out his chest and crossing his arms over it. “We saw the adulteress with our own eyes.”

“Let me show you something.” The young man invited each of her accusers to see what he had written in the dust. Each man read the words and stepped back.

“You, too!” he said with such authority to her captor, the boot lifted. When he, too, read the temporary inscription in the sand, he joined the others.

The young man stood beside her.  “Now, any of you that hasn’t sinned, go ahead and throw your stone.”

He stood beside her, ready to take the stones with her. Not only had he seen her, he came and stood with her when nobody else would. She wanted to tell him to run, to stay clear of the missiles that would surely be their death. She’d seen two stonings in her time.

One man, dropped his stone. Then another and another.  As each tumbled from fingers to ground the resulting dust covered the words the young man had written.

And each one walked away.  They were all gone. Save One.

She sat up and he sat down next to her.  He took her hand and held it to his heart. “Who condemns you now?”

“No one, sir.”

“I don’t condemn you, either.  Go and sin no more.” The voice that was forthright and echoed around the marketplace was soft and kind, its deep tone music that set her heart aflame.

She wiped her eyes with the hem of the veil puddled next to her. “Who are you?” she asked.

The market had seemed to empty out as each shop closed in the setting sun.

“I am the one who is loved fully and deeply. I am the one who loves you, who sees you, dear one, and who tells you to stop what you’re doing not because you are a bad woman for doing them. Heaven knows, there are enough people, as we’ve seen today, to say that sort of thing. I tell you to sin no more, to leave that life behind because, O my beloved sister, you are worthy of so much more. Do you see? You’re worthy of kindness and respect, dignity and compassion. You are made in the image of my Father and your Father. You search for love when it is right here”—he touched his chest—“inside of you. It is not among the unloving, the unkind, those who would take only what they want and not what you long to give. You do not have to offer yourself to the lowest bidder as if you are worthy of only what you can get.”

He put his arms around her. “You Father in heaven sees you and he sent me to tell you how much he loves you. You are already known and seen and fully loved. All of you.” He cradled her chin in his hand and pierced her eyes with a raging, fiery and glorious love. “Right now, right here, just as you are.”

And she believed him!

*****

He walked her home through the city and with love and clarity, he told her husband what had happened and not only that, he gave voice to her inner feelings in a way that was so beautiful and compelling, so full of grace and truth, her husband took her into his arms and wept.

The young man checked in on the couple every time he journeyed near their home. He was a reminder to both of the God who loves, the God who heals, the God who restores, the God who sees. From everlasting to everlasting.