The Other Woman

     The other woman... I guess that would be me. I looked for a pastor's care and guidance in my studies, and eventually in my life when circumstances seemed overwhelming. But rather than healing and helping, this pastor/parishoner relationnship became a destructive thing. And I became that 'other' woman.
     And the fear of this situation becoming a public situation kept me quiet. I did not want to be rejected and abandoned by my own church. Loss of my spiritual family would have been devastating. It would have been as if God had turned his back on me. In Bible times.... I would have been stoned...

John 8:2-11

2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?" 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." 8 And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.10 Jesus looked up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11 She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again."