It was the sixth hour, about noon, and the sun over Samaria was at its fiercest. Nobody sensible went to fetch water at that time of day. The women of Sychar went to Jacob’s well in the cool of the early morning or the evening, in groups, with their jars on their heads, talking and laughing as they walked. The well was where news was shared, marriages were arranged and reputations were made or lost.
So when one woman came alone at midday, she was coming at the hour when she was least likely to meet anyone. She had her reasons. In a small town everyone knew her story, or thought they did. Five times she had been a wife. Five times that marriage had ended. Now she was living with a man who was not her husband. Whatever had happened in each of those households, the women at the well had long ago reached their verdict, and she had learnt that it was easier to carry her water in the heat than to carry their eyes.
But that day there was a man sitting on the edge of the well. A Jew, tired from walking, alone. He asked her for a drink.
She was startled. Jews did not ask Samaritans for anything, and a respectable rabbi did not talk to a woman alone, least of all a woman like her. She said so. But He did not move away. He began to speak to her about living water, about a spring that would well up inside a person and never run dry. She did not fully understand, but something in her leaned toward it. “Sir, give me this water,” she said, “that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”
And then He said the one thing she had come at noon to avoid.
“Go, call thy husband, and come hither.”
The weight a broken marriage leaves
Very few people go through the end of a marriage without carrying something heavy away from it. There is grief, often deeper than anyone around them realises. A divorce is a death of sorts, but one without a funeral, without condolence visits and often without permission to mourn. There are hard questions about responsibility. What did I do wrong? Could I have stopped it? Was it all my fault, or none of it? And there is fear about the future. Where will I live? How will I manage? What will happen to the children? Will I always be alone?
On top of all that, many divorced and separated believers carry shame. In some churches the word divorcee is spoken almost as a diagnosis. A woman finds that she is quietly moved from the choir to the back of the hall. A man notices that the couples who once invited him for Sunday lunch have stopped calling. An aunty at a family party asks, loudly enough for others to hear, “So what did you do to make him leave?” Some people stop going to church altogether because they cannot bear the feeling of being looked at.
Men carry this too, though they often hide it better. A husband whose wife has left may feel that he has failed in the one area where every relative expected him to succeed. He may be asked at every family meeting why he could not “control his house.” He may have no one to talk to, because the men around him do not talk about such things. So he works longer hours, says less and less, and slowly withdraws from the fellowship that could help him heal.
If that is where you are, the first thing I want you to hear comes from the Psalms:
The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.” The Hebrew word for broken is shabar, the word for something shattered, like a clay pot dropped on stone. The word translated contrite is dakka, crushed, ground down. David wrote this psalm after a humiliating episode in his own life, when he had to pretend to be mad in the court of a Philistine king in order to escape with his life. He knew what it was to be ashamed and afraid.
His testimony is that God draws near to shattered people. He does not stand at a distance waiting for you to be put back together before He will approach. He comes close to the pieces. The very brokenness that may make you want to hide from church is the place where God is nearest to you.
Truth without contempt
Return to the well. When Jesus said, “Go, call thy husband,” the woman must have felt the old fear rise. So she gave the shortest answer she could:
Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
Look carefully at how Jesus responds. He tells the truth, the whole truth, about her history. He does not pretend that her situation is fine. Five marriages had ended, and her present arrangement was not a marriage. Jesus does not call that nothing. But notice how He frames it. Twice He commends her honesty: “Thou hast well said” and “in that saidst thou truly.” He meets her truth with respect.
Notice also what the text does not say. Preachers have often described this woman as a prostitute or a seductress. John says no such thing. We do not know why her five marriages ended. In that world a woman usually could not divorce her husband; men could put away their wives, and some teachers of the day permitted it for almost any reason. Some of her husbands may have died. Some may have sent her away for being childless, or for burning the food, or for no reason at all. Some of the fault may have been hers. We are simply not told. What we are told is that Jesus knew all of it, and He did not walk away.
That is the pattern of how Christ deals with people whose marriages have broken. He does not lie to them. He does not tell them that covenant does not matter, or that marriage is a small thing. He is the same Jesus who said, “from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8), when He spoke about divorce. But neither does He crush them. He brings the truth into the light in a way that opens the door to grace rather than shutting it.
The contrast with the women of Sychar is worth noticing. They knew part of her story and used it to keep her at a distance. Jesus knew all of her story and used it to draw her near. Churches have to decide which of those two pictures they will resemble. A congregation can be a crowd at the morning well, where reputations are weighed and people learn to come at noon. Or it can be a place where the truth is known and the person is still welcomed, because the One at the centre of it is the Jesus who sat down and asked for a drink.
Within minutes of naming her history, Jesus revealed Himself to this woman more plainly than He had yet revealed Himself to almost anyone. When she spoke about the coming Messiah, He said, “I that speak unto thee am he” (John 4:26). The first person in John’s Gospel to hear Jesus say those words plainly was a woman with five failed marriages, standing alone at a well at noon.
PunchlineJesus told the woman at the well the whole truth about her past, and then He told her the whole truth about Himself. Grace does not avoid your story. It meets you in it.
No condemnation
Paul reaches the high point of his argument about sin and grace in Romans with a single sentence:
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
“No condemnation.” The Greek word katakrima refers to the sentence handed down after a verdict, the punishment that follows a judgement of guilt. Paul has just spent a chapter describing his own struggle with sin, ending with the cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24). His answer is not a technique or a programme. It is a Person: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25). And then the verdict: for those who are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation.
The phrase that follows, “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” describes those who belong to Christ. It is not a test you must pass to earn freedom from condemnation. It describes what life looks like for people whom God has already set free.
This applies to divorced and separated believers with full force. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin. Whatever your part in the end of your marriage, whether large, small or none at all, if you are in Christ, God’s verdict on you is not condemnation. Jesus has borne the sentence. You may carry sorrow, regret and consequences, but you do not carry the judgement of God.
That does not make the breakdown of a marriage trivial. The prophet Malachi records the Lord saying that “he hateth putting away” (Malachi 2:16), and the context is a rebuke to men who were dealing treacherously with their wives and covering violence with their garments. God hates divorce because of what it does to people, to women abandoned by their husbands, to children, to communities. Believers hold different views about when divorce and remarriage are permitted, and those questions deserve careful study. But on this point all can agree: God’s hatred of the wound is not hatred of the wounded. The God who hates what divorce does is the same God who draws near to the brokenhearted.
Many divorced believers need to hear this said aloud, clearly and often, in church. Your marriage ended. You are not condemned. You are still a son, still a daughter, still beloved, still welcome at the Lord’s table.
Facing honestly what needs to change
NuggetFreedom from condemnation does not mean that there is nothing to look at. Healing after a marriage ends includes honest reflection, and that reflection will be different for different people.
Some people were simply wronged. A wife was abandoned for another woman. A husband was deserted. A spouse lived for years with violence, threats or control and finally left to save her life or her children’s. If that is your story, hear this clearly: you are not to blame for another person’s sin against you. You do not need to search yourself endlessly for the fault that caused it. Abuse is never a covenant obligation, and leaving danger is not a failure of faith.
Others know that they contributed to the breakdown. Perhaps there was unfaithfulness, or anger, or neglect, or years of coldness. Perhaps both partners failed in many ways, as most do. If that is your story, the gospel invites you to bring it into the light. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Name what you did. Receive God’s forgiveness. Where it is possible and safe, make amends to those you hurt.
Paul distinguishes two kinds of sorrow: “godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). Godly sorrow looks at what went wrong and moves toward change and life. Worldly sorrow circles endlessly around guilt and leads only to despair. Shame says, “I am worthless.” Conviction says, “I did wrong, and by God’s grace I can grow.” The first paralyses. The second heals.
Facing what needs to change might mean looking at patterns you brought into the marriage from your own childhood. It might mean learning how to handle anger, money or conflict differently. It might mean seeking counselling to understand why you were drawn to a particular kind of partner. It might mean recognising that you need time, perhaps a long time, before you are ready for another relationship. None of this is punishment. It is part of becoming whole.
Grief deserves space
Grief after divorce is real, and it needs room. Many divorced believers try to skip it. They throw themselves into work, ministry or a new relationship, hoping the pain will fade if they keep busy. Often it simply waits, and surfaces later in other forms.
There is a great deal to grieve. The person you once loved, or the person you hoped they would be. The dreams you had for your family. The home, perhaps, and the neighbourhood and the friends who came with it. The daily presence of your children, if they now live with the other parent part of the time. Your sense of who you were. Grieving these things is not a lack of faith. Jesus Himself wept at a graveside (John 11:35), even knowing what He was about to do.
The book of Lamentations was written in the ruins of Jerusalem, by someone who had seen everything he loved destroyed. Most of the book is raw grief. But in the very middle of it, the writer says:
It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
“They are new every morning.” The writer did not say this after the grief was over. He said it in the middle of it. God’s faithfulness did not cancel his lament. It held him while he lamented.
Make room for your grief. Talk to God honestly, as the psalmists did. Talk to a trusted friend or counsellor. Expect the hard days: the anniversary, the first Christmas alone, the child’s birthday spent in another house, the moment you see your former spouse with someone new. On those days, be gentle with yourself. God’s mercies are new that morning too.
The comfort that becomes a ministry
Paul writes to the Corinthians as a man who had suffered greatly, and he gives us a picture of how comfort works in the body of Christ:
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
The word comfort in this passage is paraklēsis, a word that means to come alongside, to strengthen and encourage. It is related to the name Jesus gave the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. God is “the God of all comfort.” He comes alongside us in every kind of trouble, including the end of a marriage.
But notice the purpose: “that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble.” Comfort is not meant to stop with us. It flows through us to others.
This has two implications. First, the church should be a place of comfort for divorced and separated people, not a place of suspicion. “Bear ye one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2) applies here as much as anywhere. Practical help matters: a meal, help with school runs, legal or financial advice, a place to stay for a season. So does simple friendship: an invitation to Sunday lunch, a seat beside them in the service, a refusal to gossip. Many churches have found great fruit in support groups where people walking through separation and divorce can meet with others who understand.
Second, your own experience of God’s comfort can, in time, become a gift to others. There will come a day when someone in your church, or your office, or your family, goes through what you have gone through. You will know what to say and what not to say. You will know how to sit with them. The comfort you received will become the comfort you give.
Recovery also often needs professional help. A Christian counsellor can help with grief, trauma, anger and the practical work of rebuilding. If there are signs of depression, anxiety or thoughts of self-harm, please see a doctor. Seeking help is wisdom, not weakness.
Not disqualified
One of the deepest lies that shame tells is that you have become useless to God. Many divorced believers assume their days of serving Christ are over. Some churches, unintentionally or deliberately, reinforce that assumption.
Go back once more to the well. The woman with five failed marriages was the first evangelist to her town. And God’s promise through Isaiah to His people, who had been sent into exile like a wife put away, speaks with great tenderness to every forsaken person:
Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.
“Thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth.” This was spoken to Israel as a nation, after the exile. But its picture of God’s character is unmistakable. He calls back the woman “forsaken and grieved in spirit,” the “wife of youth, when thou wast refused,” and He says to her, “thou shalt not be put to shame.” The Lord Himself becomes her husband, her Maker and her Redeemer. That is how God treats those who have been rejected.
It is true that Christians hold differing views about whether divorced or remarried people may hold certain church offices. Paul’s phrase “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2) has been read in several ways, and churches apply it differently. Those questions should be handled with care and with respect for each church’s leadership. But no view of church office makes a divorced person a second-class member of the body of Christ. Every believer has received gifts from the Spirit. Every believer has a place to serve, to pray, to encourage, to give, to welcome and to bear witness.
Scripture is full of people whose households broke and whom God did not set aside. Hagar was sent away from Abraham’s tent twice, once fleeing harsh treatment and once cast out with her son. Yet it was Hagar, alone in the wilderness, who gave God a name no one else in Scripture uses: “Thou God seest me” (Genesis 16:13). The woman whom a family no longer wanted became the woman who knew she was seen by God. Your story, too, may become the place where you learn things about God that you could not have learnt any other way, and that others will one day need to hear from you.
The God who said, “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten” (Joel 2:25) is able to bring fruitfulness out of seasons that seemed wasted. He has done it for countless people before you.
Rebuilding a life
Healing is a process, and rebuilding a life after a marriage ends happens in small, practical steps.
Settle your identity. Before you were a husband or a wife, you were a child of God. That has not changed. Spend time in the Scriptures that speak of who you are in Christ.
PunchlineEstablish rhythms. Regular sleep, meals, exercise, worship and prayer help steady a life that has been shaken. Do not underestimate the healing power of ordinary routine.
Rebuild community. Reconnect with friends you may have withdrawn from. If you have changed churches, give yourself time to find your place in a new one. Let people in.
Take care of practical matters. Finances, housing, legal arrangements and the children’s needs often require attention. Seek good advice and take one step at a time.
Be careful with new relationships. Many people find that loneliness pushes them toward a new partner too quickly. Give yourself time to heal and to understand what went wrong before. Questions about remarriage are serious ones, on which sincere believers differ, and they deserve prayerful study and wise counsel when the time comes.
Work toward forgiveness. Where you were wronged, you will need, in time, to release your former spouse from the debt of revenge. That does not mean pretending nothing happened, and it does not necessarily mean reconciliation. It means refusing to let bitterness have the last word in your life.
Care for your children, if you have them. They are grieving too, often in ways they cannot put into words. Keep their routines steady, tell them clearly that the breakdown of the marriage is not their fault, and do not draw them into your conflicts with their other parent. Your own healing will be one of the greatest gifts you can give them. A parent who is slowly finding peace in God teaches a child, without a single sermon, that a broken home does not have to mean a broken life.
And hold on to hope. Your story is not finished.
The woman left her waterpot at the well. John mentions it almost in passing, but it is a remarkable detail. She had come at noon for water, carefully avoiding the town. Now she abandoned the very thing she had come for and ran straight back into the streets she had been hiding from.
The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?
“Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did.” Think about what she said. The thing she had been most ashamed of, the story the women at the well had whispered about for years, became the heart of her testimony. Jesus had told her everything she had ever done, and He had not rejected her. That was the good news she could not keep to herself.
And the town listened. John tells us that “many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman” (John 4:39). The woman who could not face the morning crowd at the well brought the whole town out to meet the Saviour.
That is what Christ does with people whose marriages have broken. He does not pretend the past did not happen. He tells them the truth about it, gently and fully. Then He tells them the truth about Himself. And He sends them back into the light, unashamed, carrying living water.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What shame or condemnation have you carried since your marriage ended, and where has it come from?
- How does Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well change the way you think about your own story?
- What is honestly yours to face and change, and what is not yours to carry at all?
- What grief have you not yet made room for, and who could you share it with?
- How might God use the comfort you have received to comfort someone else?
This Week
This week, write out Romans 8:1 and Psalm 34:18 on a card and keep it where you will see it every morning. Then take one concrete step toward support: call a trusted friend and tell them honestly how you are doing, make an appointment with a counsellor, or ask your pastor whether there is a support group for separated and divorced people. If you are a church leader, take one step this week to make a divorced or separated member of your congregation feel welcomed and valued.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, You met a woman at a well who carried a broken history, and You told her the truth with kindness. Meet me in my story too. You know everything about my marriage and how it ended, and You have not turned away from me. Thank You that there is no condemnation for me in You. Heal my broken heart. Show me honestly what I need to face and change, and lift from me the shame that is not mine to carry. Comfort me in my grief, and one day let me comfort others with the comfort I have received. Give me courage to leave my waterpot and walk back into the light. In Your name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.