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When I was growing up, one of my favorite board games was “The Game of Life.” My friends and I would eagerly dive into the box, staking claim to our favorite-colored tiny minivan and making the difficult decision of whether to start out on the “college” or the “career” track.

Going to college meant you started out in debt (around $100,000, if I recall correctly, a figure that is not too far from reality these days!), but it also meant you had the opportunity to select a high-paying career, such as “doctor” or “accountant.” If you jumped right into your career, you selected from lower-paying professions, but you began receiving your payday much earlier in the game, and you had no debt to your name.

As you moved throughout the game, you were sure to acquire a spouse, purchase a home and receive frequent pay raises. There was a good likelihood that you would add children to your family, sometimes two at a time. You might even win a Nobel prize or a family vacation to an exotic island. Sure, there were spaces that forced you to hand over your hard-earned dollars for soccer camps, private school tuition, and those dreaded taxes, but you knew there was always a payday around the corner.

We knew that “The Game of Life” was far more ideal than our actual lives would be. None of us expected to draw our career out of a stack of cards or win coveted awards just for being in the right place at the right time. But I think we did absorb one thing from that game: The stages of life are not just well defined, but guaranteed. We would get a job and a house (with the opportunity to trade up), each one of us would get married, and the vast majority would have children. Those were the prescribed stages of life, and we would all go through them at about the same time. What a comforting thing to know at the age of 12!

I believed the illusion for a little while, as my friends and I went off to college at the same time. But then friends, new and old, started getting engaged and married, and those of us who had been “left behind” on the singles scene began to wonder when we would get to move onto that coveted next stage of life.

College graduation lessened my insecurities for a few months, and in the excitement, I forgot that I was supposed to be worried about keeping up with my peers. But they steadily began receiving job offers that took them to new and exciting places, and my anxiety returned. As I began graduate school, the feeling of being left behind was more acute than ever. I felt like I was stuck at the beginning of The Game of Life, still accruing loans and stuffing knowledge into my brain, while my friends were sailing across the board, picking up spouses and paychecks along the way. (Continued on next page.)

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Visit the study page for ideas for discussion and further reflection.

Feeling left out or left behind can have a negative effect on us. It can alter the way we move around in the world. We may feel that we have failed.

Sometimes we are left out of being considered for a job; Sometimes we feel left out because we’re different. We may feel left behind when we compare our lives to others.

While our friends are having babies or launching their careers, it’s easy to feel like we are not good enough especially if our path is less certain. Perhaps, like the woman at the well in John Chapter 4, our feelings of inadequacy can make us feel like we are not worthy.

This was the situation of the Samaritan woman at the well that Jesus meets in John’s gospel (John 4:5–42). The odds were stacked against this nameless woman. For many reasons she was pushed out of her own community.

Being a woman was certainly not the fast track to gaining power, prestige, and popularity in her culture. At that time women could not own property and they had little status in society.

Not only was she a woman, she was a Samaritan. The hostility between the Jews and Samaritans was mostly rooted in religious differences and had an effect on the daily lives of both groups. They were taught not to interact with each other; they didn’t have friendships, they didn’t talk, they didn’t touch. There was a line between them that simply was not crossed.

Like all of us, this Samaritan woman had a story. We know from her conversation with Jesus that she had five husbands and now was with another man. The text does not give the story of the five husbands. Perhaps she had been abandoned. Perhaps she was a widow. No matter the reason, this was but one more detail in her life that pushed her away from being fully integrated into her community. She was an outsider. Continued on next page.