Let’s talk about Book 1 Eternal Spring

Eternal Spring introduces Avigayil or Avi. She is a Samaritan and lives in the small town of Sychar. She is the only daughter in a family of 4 boys. She is treasured by her father. Adored by her brothers and mother. She is married like most girls at the time very young, within a year after her first period.

Her marriage is wonderful in many ways, except that no children come. Avi does whatever she can to create fertility in her body but nothing works. Eventually her husband issues her a decree of divorce, something a husband can do after ten years of childlessness. He thinks there are other reasons and is sparing her the worst of it.

From this point on, Avi’s life becomes a cycle of bad choices and wanting to be accepted and loved. She becomes the scorned woman of the village by her many mistakes and an outcast even among her brothers who once loved her.

Then one fateful day she goes out to the well long after the respectable women of town had collected their water for the day and finds a man sitting there. He is obviously Jewish, Galilean and so she is only mildly concerned. Jewish men would not publicly speak to a woman or a Samaritan. She was both. But he does. And thus begins the famous passage from John of Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well, and his first revealing of who he is.

The encounter changes her life and the life of many in her village. The story moves on to explain how the interaction changed the people of Sychar and how God blesses Avi for her faithfulness in the end.

Dig deeper with the Bible study that follows the story in the book and enjoy the fictionalized version of this woman’s trials, hurts, and mistakes, and eventually her redemption.