My cross was inside of me—a stabbing guilt and a heart that was so numb that it didn’t even know it was feeling pain. My choices, my decisions, my husbands, my lies--and my son, my only child, who now resented me and wanted nothing more to do with me.

How had everything gone so wrong? Why was happiness always so elusive? Why hadn’t God heard my prayers? I was empty inside, and none of the things I had fought so hard for were going to fill that gaping hole in my soul.

Then a Man stood in front of me, His hair dusty from travel and His eyes tired. But as He looked at me I could see nothing but gentle respect in His eyes. Why was He not condemning me? For that matter, why was He even speaking to me? Somehow He knew the worst--the things that made me hate myself, as well as those that made the town despise me.

This morning I had been so miserable that I had wanted to die. Now I felt as if someone had seen me for the first time.

Something inside of me shattered, and I struggled to hold back tears. If God would send His Messiah to speak to me, a Samaritan woman, then perhaps there was hope. Perhaps the Messiah hadn’t come for the priests and religious men or to conquer the Romans . . . Perhaps He had come for harlots and murderers and crushed, grieving husbands like Ashar. For confused sons and for barren women with stolen children. For escaped gladiators and their desperate wives.

Perhaps the Messiah had come for broken, cruel women like me . . .