Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.”
-John 4:17b-18a, NIV
What I find fascinating about this exchange is how the woman does not respond as if she was condemned.
Jesus spoke a rather unflattering truth about her. However, that did not drive her away from Jesus. She embraced the supernatural revelation and Jesus along with it.
Truth is often a casualty in situations with marital infidelity.
Cheaters speak in lies, and faithful spouses are shamed into silence by the Christian community in far too many situations. The idea of speaking the truth, ugly and all, is treated as an attack on the person of the cheater. It is not.
Speaking the truth is about speaking the truth.
Like Jesus and this woman at the well, speaking a difficult truth can be the most loving thing a person does. When we are unwilling to speak truth and thereby acknowledge reality, it is impossible to deal with said reality and heal.
