The Nameless Woman by Lauren

jadyn noelle photography

I love to pass on work that other people produce. I especially love to pass on original words written by young girls and young ladies.

Today I have the super honor of sharing a story that a wonderful young lady recently wrote. Lauren is my daughter's roommate at college. You know how we parents pray for our kids friends as they grow up, hoping our children will find very quality relationships? Lauren is an above and beyond answer to those prayers. She is in real life as fun as she looks in this picture! Ultra quality, as you will soon see as you read her words. 

I love her focus on "the nameless woman" in this story, taken from the story in John 8 from the Bible. No one is nameless to God. Lauren imagined what the woman caught in adultery must have been thinking as she was extended grace from this amazing Man. 

The Nameless Woman

By Lauren Branz

Again, I found myself in the same place.
Once again, I felt such filth all over my body.
I lifted up my fingers to wipe away the tears from my eyes, but all I could see was the dirt under my fingernails and my mud-stained hands.

My body ached.
Ached with a stinging pain.
Ached from the broken heart that I owned and was trying so desperately to fix.

The ground underneath my body was hard and cold.
There were no blankets to warm me.
Nothing to melt the icy feeling that followed me wherever I put my feet.

All that was next to me was a man that did not belong to me.
A man that did not love me.
A man that wanted a twisted form of love from me.

He didn’t want me. Not me.
No man wanted me.

You see, I was what you would label “an adulterer”
Always taking things that did not belong to me.
Always looking for love in the wrong places.
It was a deadly cycle that I couldn’t figure out how to break.

I looked out of the makeshift window in the small clay home.
It was still dark, yet the sun was beginning to slowly burst out of the horizon.
The man next to me was beginning to stir.
His body reeked with a smell that I could only describe as spoiled food and wine.

I realized that I needed to leave this man quickly.
His wife would be home when the sun was out of hiding.

Although this was a lifestyle that I had become accustomed to,
I still didn’t want to be caught doing the very thing that I was the most ashamed of.

I began to sit up slowly and started to look for my worn-out sandals that were passed on to me from my mother.
They were right beside the enormous door and inside of a bucket.
I stood up and began to plan my quiet escape.

As I was picking up the sandals, I began to hear noises outside of the home.
Then the door began to slowly open.
I looked around for a place to run, but there was nowhere to run.
There was always nowhere to run.

A woman now stood in the doorway with a group of men behind her.
She walked in her home with a candle in her hands.
She looked right at me with fire in her eyes and yelled,
“This is the woman I was suspecting. The adulterer!”

The adulterer. Even I was beginning to forget my own name.

“Get out of this home!” One of the men yelled.
“How dare you think you could get away with this?” A second one said.
“You’re coming with us. No harlot in this town!” Another added.

The woman walked right up to me as her drunken husband began to wake up from the chaos.
“I hope you get what you deserve for seducing my husband,” she said as she spit on my face.
She then leaned down to comfort her repulsive husband.

“Who is this woman?” he said pointing at me. “I have never seen her before!” he slurred.

I looked at him, disgusted.
Once again, I was the nameless woman.
Was anyone willing to stand up for me?
Did I do this act by myself?

The wife began to whimper loudly.
“Pharisees, take her away!” She yelled to the men in the doorway.

The two men in the front came to me, and grabbed both of my arms forcefully.
They pushed me through the door as they began walking me through the town.

They were holding my arms so hard that I was beginning to not be able to feel them.
All I could feel was the sharp stones under my feet.
I remembered I never got the sandals from the bucket

Where were they taking me?
Was death my punishment?
There was a dark part of me that wished that it was.
At least I would be out of my misery.

I was beginning to see where they were taking me.
To the temple courts.

As they brought me into the temple, I realized there were hundreds of people there.
They were all listening to a man that I had never seen before that was standing in front of them all.
He was teaching them.

He stopped speaking when I came into the temple.
All of the people looked at me.
My pride was gone. Everything I had was gone.
I had never felt more defeated.

The men made me stand in front of the entire group.
All of their eyes were glued to me.
I looked down at my filthy feet to avoid their gaze.

“Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”

I felt as if the men didn’t like this teacher.
Like he was challenging their authority.
They hung on his every movement like they were trying to accuse him of something also.

Instead of answering them, this teacher bent down and starting writing in the dirt below him.

I thought that maybe the men had brought me to the wrong person.
Who was this curious man?
What was happening?

“Did you hear us, teacher?” one asked.
“What are you doing?’ another one chimed.
The questioning continued as he persistently wrote in the dirt.
After a long pause, he stood up and said these simple words,

“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

My head shot up.
I couldn’t believe it.
Was this teacher crazy?

Everybody in the town knew who I was.
An adulterer.
I deserved a punishment.
I deserved to be put to death for the things that I had done.
I even knew that.

He looked at me for a moment with his soft gaze and bent down to write in the dirt again.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first.
Every single one of my accusers and criticizers fled.

This teacher gathered himself as he looked around the temple.

“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” he said as he looked at me with his gentle eyes.

I looked around the temple.
No one was here to condemn me any more.

“No one, sir.” I spoke slowly.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” the teacher declared.
“Go now and leave your life of sin.”

He continued writing in the dirt.
I was speechless and shocked.

Whoever this man was,
Whatever this man was,
I wanted to know what he was teaching.

(Send her some love in the comment section- she is just emerging as a writer and went out on a limb letting me post this! Don't you agree she should continue writing?!! So good).