On the Woman Taken in Adultery

It’s a fairly well known and often taught story.  The woman is caught in the act of adultery and is brought to Christ to be judged and stoned.  Christ’s response: let he who is without sin cast the first stone.  The now very uncomfortable crowd disperses leaving just Christ and the woman who He treats with love and compassion.  This is of course a very abridged version of a very complicated and important story.  There are valuable principles that can be learned about judgment, compassion, and the Atonement.  Please understand, what follows is not a theological essay in anyway but rather, very personal reactions to and struggles that have come from this story.

My first reaction has always been one of gratitude and love towards the Savior.  There was no lecture, no degradation. He already knew her heart and her feelings at that moment and spoke what she needed to hear.  When you are truly trying to repent, or pulling yourself back up after you’ve been beaten down, you don’t need to be reminded how horribly you’ve failed.  How awful you are.  How far you’ve fallen.  Trust me you already know.  You tell yourself. Every. Single. Day.  And sometimes, you have a hard time letting go of the feeling that you can’t make it back up.  But the Savior knew. And He still does. 

I’ve felt that same love and reassurance from the Savior in my own life.  That reminder that He is there and that He understands.   There are those in life who may throw stones, even unintentionally.  I’ve had those in authority tell me how I’ve done everything wrong, everything is my fault, I have to take the blame and if I’d only made different choices, everything would have been fine.  I wasn’t confessing a great sin, or any sin for that matter.  I was going for counseling after something huge had happened.  But I was told, and then had it reinforced by several others, that everything was in fact, my fault.  This is a feeling that haunts me to the point of panic attacks and avoiding those I know to be kind and compassionate.  At some of the worst of these times, I have received gentle words of comfort.  Scriptures or hymns, friendships, soft reminders that maybe, just maybe, there’s hope somewhere still.  Like the woman taken in adultery, the Savior knows who I am. He understands.

I find myself thinking more and more about the woman herself.  We are never told anything about her and maybe in the larger picture, it didn’t matter much, but I wonder about what her life was like before.  Did she find true joy and happiness after?  How did she come to be where she was?  I often wonder, if we, as modern-day readers, are too quick to condemn her.  We don’t know her life. Was this a life forced on her by circumstances? Was it a willing choice? We don’t know, but we often assume.  I’ve heard her called a harlot or a prostitute and sometimes worse.  I think these are harsh things to say about a woman we know for maybe an hour of her entire life.  An hour that was set up for her to be condemned and to die.

It takes a lot of work not to practice the art of condemnation by snippets.  We tend to see so little of what makes up a person.  And yet, we tend to make so many judgments based on those few snippets. I’ve found myself guilty of that lately.  I’ve been looking back at memories of the last two years of high school, how I felt about the people around me and how my interactions with them made me feel.  I’ve had to rethink some of it and take some of the blame for those relationships that were…awful.  Really, really awful.  And I will always be grateful for those who looked past the very large defensive barrier I put up and were my friends, and are still my friends now. I should have taken lessons. 

It’s well worth the time to stop and pay attention to those who are outgoing part of the time and silent at others, who avoid places and people.  Judgment by snippets is painful and they will notice and will remember.  There are people and places I am not comfortable around 10, 15, 20, even 30 years later because of things that were said or implied.  I may not be who or what you stated, but I will never forget that is where I fit in your world.  It’s not about forgiving, because I have.  It just became one more part of the mantra of failure and condemnation.  Pain runs deep and even more so when you repeat it constantly to yourself.

I still struggle with many of the events that caused that defensive barrier to go up and too many choices have been framed by it.  There are, unfortunately, some pains that really can’t be healed for some people in this world without true miracles.  Some of the great friends from before are still around as well as great friends from after, and I have been given the chance to build friendships that might have been started over 30 years ago.  I’ve also been blessed with great friends who have taken the time and patience to really get to know me.  All of who I am, through all of my struggles as I try to rebuild and decide who I want to be.  I am doing the best I can every day and hoping to get a little better every day.  I have to accept that the strange, can’t even see the box, person I am can be enough. Somehow.

Which brings me back to our mysterious woman.  I still wonder about her.  I hope she found peace.  I hope the path that she started on at that moment was the one she walked for the rest of her days.  I hope she found courage and a sense of strength in herself.  Someday, I would like to meet her.  Just to know she’s ok, happy, and at peace.