Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

I feel like the little Catholic girl my grandmother would grab by the hand and walk to the confessional. The only difference is, this time I actually feel bad and WANT to go in and spill my guts - not so much back then.

I have been stalling in writing this segment for 3 months. Mostly out of fear. Procrastination.

When I started the Nameless Project, I knew I would get push-back. I knew it would be difficult for people, especially churched people to accept the fact that Christians are just as likely to be victims of domestic and sexual violence as those who are not. It's not an easy subject to talk about. And people go to church to feel positive emotions, not negative ones.

I thought with some education and facts presented in a modern, civil manner, my message would be accepted. But I was not mentally prepared for what was about to happen. It isn't the church body that's giving me the most push-back, it's church leadership. And not just my own church, but other local churches also. Several within the congregation are well aware of what goes on outside the 4 walls of the church building, but leadership does not want to acknowledge or talk about it.

It's ironic that the problems that existed 35 years ago, still grip the church today. Thirty-five years ago I refused to discuss my past with anyone in church, including my pastor, because no one ever talked about domestic and sexual violence. It was NEVER discussed from the pulpit. It was never a topic of a Bible study or a women's conference. So, I guess it didn't happen to Christians...right? I assumed all those lost and lonely feelings I was experiencing were abnormal. There were times I thought I was crazy. And when I tried to commit suicide four years AFTER I accepted Christ, we kept THAT a secret too! Because, heaven forbid, we acknowledge the result of NOT talking about it!

Our church and our pastors should be the FIRST place we think of to turn to in our time of need, no matter what that need is. And if pastors refuse to address this issue from the pulpit or talk about it openly, then how is anyone, any victim, ever going to know where they stand on the subject?

I've heard pastors address how the church should be responsible for the children (through foster care), for the elderly, even the mentally disabled. Churches offer classes for children, teens, and married couples, even financial and budgeting classes. But the moment I ask them to address domestic and sexual violence from the pulpit or ask if they ever have, I've suddenly crossed an invisible line into a land of silence and scorn.

Jesus placed an unusual sense of value on women throughout his time on earth. It was customary for men to treat women as second class citizens and for husbands to only speak to their wives in private, never in public. Jesus treated women as equals in ministry, in teaching, and in prayer. He honored them to the point that his disciples wrote of it many times.

In John chapter 4, Jesus has his encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. Samaritans and Jews despised each other and they never spoke to each other. So, according to custom, He shouldn't have spoken to her as a Samaritan OR as a woman. The entire community looked down upon this woman. She had a terrible reputation. One, I might add, that was never verified in scripture. She was ostracized and persecuted so much so that she walked to the well to fill her water jars in the heat of the day, at noon, rather than with the other women of the community, early in the morning.

And this woman, the woman that everyone else took great measures to avoid, Jesus sat and had a conversation with. A conversation that would eventually, not only lead her to salvation, but lead an entire village to salvation.

Christ found her worthy of leading an entire village to salvation...

What are our churches so afraid of? The Samaritan woman? The reputation? Our churches are filled with Samaritan women, they're just too scared to speak. But they need to hear the voice of Jesus. Who's going to be brave enough to speak it? Who will tell her she is worthy of the King, no matter what lies in her past? Who will tell her she is worthy of the living water, even though she has been isolated for so long? Who will say, "You're not alone."?

A long time ago I was that nameless woman at the well. I was carrying those jars of water in the heat of the day EVERYDAY because I felt like I was all alone in a world no one understood. It took years for me to piece together the message Jesus had for me. And I thank God that I was blessed enough to come across ONE pastor brave enough to speak a message that would sink into my heart.

My goal is to remember the woman at the well. Jesus didn't care about the rules. He didn't care what anyone else thought. He saw her for who she was, who she could be. I think there's is a piece of that nameless woman in all of us. My prayer is that everyone gets the opportunity to sit at the well with Jesus - to have a conversation that will change their life.

John 4:7–15 NIV

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”