Free No Wasted Tears by Sylvia D. Carter

When she opened her eyes, Destiny hugged her. Miss Sara was crying in between saying, “Bless you, Lord.”
    The twins were both holding on to the legs of their mom, and Adam saw his congregation nudging each other, pointing in Cynthia’s direction.
    It was then that he rose and walked toward the podium to do what he knew he’d been called to do. Opening his mouth, he began to preach. “Let the church say amen, for the Lord is surely in this place today. Can I get another amen?” He heard a return chorus of “amens.”
    “I don’t know about you all, but I know the presence of the Lord is here. Today, would you open your Bibles to John, the fourth chapter?” Adam smiled when he heard all of the Bible pages turning.
    “I want you to take a trip with me to the town of Samaria. Adam looked out over his congregation before continuing. “I want to invite you all to come see a man.”
    Adam began by saying, “I want you to listen in on a conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well. Having met her at Jacob’s well and being very thirsty, Jesus asked her for a drink. The woman refused because he was a Jew and therefore could not expect favors from a Samaritan.”
    As always, Adam made the story personal to everyone in the audience by going on to say, “Now, if you don’t know, let me inform you all that Jesus had a rep that not many can duplicate. So when he flipped the script and started to talk about living water, he then turned around and informed her that if she only knew the gift of God that was in her presence, she would ask him for water. Can I give it to you in today’s language?”
    Looking at the faces of his audience, he heard some of them shout back, “Say it, Pastor!” or, “Go on with your bad self!” Adam smiled and continued.
    “The trouble with this woman was that she put Jesus in the same category of every other man she had met. She didn’t know of whom she was standing in the presence of at that time. She was blinded by the negative views of all the men who had approached her before Jesus!”
    Adam asked before he could think, “Can I get somebody to look at their neighbor and say, ‘Excuse me, but you’re blocking my view’?”
    Continuing in his extraordinary fashion, he said, “This woman was a notorious sinner, even by Samaritan standards. She had been married five times and was presently living with her sixth lover. Although she was a sinner, there was hope for her because she just met a man that would change her life.”
    He stepped back and looked over the church and said, “Can I get somebody to say, ‘I met a man’?”
    The church was on fire, and people were standing and shouting their replies loud and proud. The presence of the Lord was strongly on him.
    He continued, “She had just met Jesus. He had to pass through Samaria that day to save this woman. He had asked her for a drink because he was thirsty. How many of you know it wasn’t a physical thirst?” he asked. “Just as Jesus is thirsting for the salvation of this woman, he longs to save someone today. Because just like she needed living water, you need the healing waters of grace and salvation.”
    Adam paused to asked, “Now, brothers, if you don’t mind, can I ask the sisters something that only they can answer?”
    He heard the brothers respond, “Ask them, Pastor.”
    He laughed while saying, “Sisters, how many of you all out there have misunderstood his question, just like this sister, but you had enough intelligence to realize that this man was talking about a special kind of water? You knew enough to see that this brother wasn’t like any of the ones you met before.” Adam asked the ladies, “Can I get some sisters to say, ‘Talk to me, Jesus?’”
    The church was really rocking now. Adam told them, “Guess what she asked him? According to John 4:15, she said, ‘Give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.’
    “Then my Jesus and your Jesus bluntly said to her,