The woman at the well met Jesus. Do you have things in your past that you would ­rather forget? Do you have things that other people have held against you, assumed about you, or used to keep you on the outside?

This Samaritan woman did. Jesus could have come up with some excuses to avoid her. For example, a Jewish man like him was not supposed to associate with a Samaritan woman. Also, as Jesus himself knew, she had been married five times (John 4:18)—and because the ­divorce law gave only husbands the right to divorce, that meant she had been left and rejected five times. As a result, she was an outsider in her community, a woman with a checkered past.

But Jesus asked her to give him a drink of water. He ­allowed her to serve him water, and then he also offered her a much greater gift: the living water of eternal life. Afterward, many other people in her community believed her story about Jesus and started to follow him too (see John 4:39-41).

As he did for this woman at the well, Jesus still approaches people who feel like outsiders, and he shows compassion and love. To you who are thirsty for acceptance: Jesus is the one who can quench your thirst.