A Meeting Like No Other: A Modern-Day Woman at the Well

By Audrey Kendrick

GOD WANTS TO SPEAK TO YOU.

Have you ever wondered why you have not been able to stay married? There is hope and restoration for you if you have pondered these questions:

• Have you lost hope for ever being a happy wife?
• Have you ever felt that you had to fight for your sanity?
• Do you know what you want?
• Do

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Sep 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890411044

Audrey Kendrick

Audrey Kendrick is a wife, a daughter, a sister, a mother, a grandmother, and a friend. She resides in Florida with her husband and has a degree in biblical studies from Truth Bible College in Jacksonville, Florida. Everything she has written in this book comes from her own life experiences. She has been anointed to bring people into the presence of God for the healing of memories, the revealing of truth, and the recognition of lifelong patterns that have caused so much pain. She was a home fellowship leader for years, operating in the gifts of the Spirit. She is a survivor of divorce and years of codependency. Her purpose is to bring hope and restoration by sharing her testimony and how she has overcome many traumas of emotional abuse and a victim mentality. She has been freed from a world of judgments and assumptions into a world of freedom and acceptance through her relationship with the One who knows every detail of her story and has remained faithful, the One who stayed through it all. His name is Jesus.

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A Meeting Like No Other

A Modern-day Woman at the well

Audrey Kendrick

Trilogy Christian Publishers

Tustin, CA

Trilogy Christian Publishers

A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

2442 Michelle Drive

Tustin, CA 92780

A Meeting Like No Other

Copyright © 2023 by Audrey Kendrick

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without written permission from the author. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

Rights Department, 2442 Michelle Drive, Tustin, CA 92780.

Trilogy Christian Publishing/TBN and colophon are trademarks of Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Cover design by Jeff Summers

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Trilogy Christian Publishing.

Trilogy Disclaimer: The views and content expressed in this book are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views and doctrine of Trilogy Christian Publishing or the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 979-8-89041-103-7

E-ISBN: 979-8-89041-104-4 (ebook)

Dedication

First, I want to dedicate this book to the Holy Spirit; You are the reason for this book. The love You have for Your daughters is amazing. Thank You for loving me.

To my husband, who brings me lots of avocados and mangoes and a reminder to rest when I am tired. Thank you for the valuable wisdom you share about life, the encouragement to finish this book, and for helping me change my mindset as I see God doing something new.

Thirdly I want to dedicate this book to my mother, Patricia Gray. She has been brave; she has beaten the odds. My mother could have given up many times, but she is still here; life has held limits in so many ways, but at eighty years old, she can still smile, which is a sign that life has not hardened her but has left her with so much gratitude that she can’t contain the tears. Very few have known her suffering; she is a testimony of God’s faithfulness and love. I honor her as my earthy mother. She and I have had our relationship challenges, but God—He has proven to me that she is sincere with wanting the best in all concerning me. I love you. I thank my sister, Susan, as she has helped me in more ways than I can say. Thanks to all my brothers who call me beautiful. To my children, Ken, Sandra, Susan, and Cindy, and all my grandchildren, I pray as you read this book, you are drawn closer to Jesus and know my deepest love for you.

I dedicate this book to all my exes who live in Texas, as the song goes. Three of them have gone on to be with Jesus. Thank you for the life lessons I have learned; I would not be who I have become in my search for God without you. I genuinely wish all of you the very best.

To my tried-and-true genuine friends, Paul, my dear brother, you know my history better than anyone, and you have loved me through it all. Kim, Cadence, Peggy, Sharon, Bishop, and Lady White. You all have seen me at my worst and still love me. We have learned from each other, and I am grateful for all the consistent prayers sent on my behalf and how you have stood by me.

Lastly, I want to dedicate this book to all the women who have loved and lost part of themselves. Each time they started over, there was a hope within them that there was still time that someone would love them, someone would notice the value they brought to the relationship. They sought the validation they believed only a man could give them. This book is for all the women who have tried to be all their husbands wanted them to be, and, in doing so, they began to see a person in the mirror who did not resemble who they are, the person God created them to be. In fact, to those who didn’t even know who they were or what they wanted. To those of us who smiled and danced once with the pureness of a child but woke up one day feeling there was nothing to dance or smile about. The ones who lost their voice in a deep, confusing silence, trying to survive a raging condemnation and years of pain on the inside. To my sisters, I may not know your name, but I can feel your hurt as you are just in search of being loved and treasured. To the family and friends who just don’t get it. And thanks to the ones who didn’t judge me. No condemnation is meant here for those who did judge and didn’t get me but just a note of caution to try to be more sensitive to those of us who have seemed to lose our way in a journey that leads to purpose and making some sense to our lives and trying to make sense of all that seemed lost.

Don’t lose heart; things are about to change. It is time for a personal revival. You are about to realize you are loved and always have been. You are not alone; we are better together in our search for truth. Truth is a turning point for you, a moment where you start to love yourself and love God even more.

Acknowledgments

To those I have learned from, the ones who have supported me emotionally and financially in writing this book.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Samuel Phiri

Patricia Gray

Paul Schippel

Kim Waldrupt

Cadence McCall

Thomas Rhodes

Sherri Clark

Thank you to Terry Cordingley from TBN, who read this manuscript and encouraged me with his response; you touched me, and I sincerely appreciate it.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Bible Version of the Woman at the Wellat the Time of Jesus

Chapter 2. A Modern-Day Woman at the Well

Chapter 3. Noticeable Patterns

Chapter 4. Unhappily Ever After Again

Chapter 5. Stereotyping

Chapter 6. Who Am I?

Chapter 7. A Renewing of Your Mind

Chapter 8. Stop Running from God

Chapter 9. The Truth about God

Chapter 10. Reality Living

Chapter 11. Emotional Challenges

Chapter 12. Children and Divorce

Chapter 13. So Many Changes

Chapter 14. What Do You Want?

Chapter 15. Take Another Drink from the Well

Foreword

I have known Audrey for over thirty-five years and have considered her more family than friend.

She has been one of my closest confidants and spiritual adviser through some of the most challenging parts of my life. Her desire to minister and touch people’s lives with the truth of God’s Word and share those truths through her life’s journey has blessed many. I have watched her struggle through many of the issues she brings forth in her book, and I have witnessed her.

Faith and commitment to Christ bring her through every trial and temptation the forces of opposition have thrown at her, human or spiritual.

She has served different ministries as an advocate for bringing inner healing to hurting men and women alike and has shown her impartial ability to call out with honesty and integrity that there is no blame game within the confines of marriage or relationships.

In Christ, there is neither male nor female; we are all one in Him, and all bear equal responsibility to make a marriage work.

In A Meeting Like No Other, Audrey introduces us to Jesus, who has no regard for a person’s social status or the depth of their sin. We see the fullness of God’s love, mercy, and grace to all who trust Him.

All are welcome, the outcast, the socially unacceptable, the sexually immoral, the poor, and those considered the dregs of society. Still, all are welcome to drink the water Jesus was offering. This despised woman had a thirst that only Christ could satisfy, and she wanted it. She wanted to feel, know, and experience the love and acceptance she could not find in her five previous marriages.

In A Meeting Like No Other, Audrey will introduce you to chapters of her life with rich examples of truth, love, forgiveness, honesty, full disclosure, and acceptance. A successful marriage starts with each one of us examining our faults and weakness within our marriages and relationships and the need to stop blaming each other for how we feel and pointing out one another’s flaws and imperfections.

The woman at the well mentioned in the Bible even questioned Jesus’s desire to communicate with her or why He would ask her to fetch water for Him. She is somewhat baffled because she makes a statement that says it all; she tells Him that we Samaritans are despised and rejected by all Jews, and normally Jews won’t even speak to us. And this fact is solidified by the apparent reaction of the disciples when they arrived and saw Jesus talking to her.

In A Meeting Like No Other, Audrey brings forth with spiritual clarity the depth of God’s love for all who have failed and those who feel unworthy, unloved, despised, and rejected. God through Christ puts on full display through the biblical story that He is no respecter of persons, male or female, and that His love through Christ’s shed blood covers the worst of sinners, as Scripture makes clear in Romans 5:20 (KJV), Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

The woman at the well did not know and had no idea how her life would transform and change that day; she was living out her daily routine, but this day would change her life forever. Others noticed she had a new zeal for life, a new outlook for life, and an unquenchable thirst that had been satisfied. Because of this encounter with Jesus, a man who accepted her without condition with all her flaws and imperfections, she now has hope, unconditional love, and forgiveness of sin. She would never thirst again for what she believed was unattainable; the woman realizes that in her search for fulfillment, everything that sustains her comes from a relationship she has established with Jesus.

When Jesus told her to get her husband, she replied, But I’m not married. All too true! Jesus said. She had admitted her failure. Why hide the obvious? And at this point in her life, she was shacking up with a new man after five failed marriages. What the woman at the well was looking for could only be found in Christ, not in men’s arms. It was discovered by thirsting for the truth. A truth Audrey introduces you to within the pages of this book.

—Paul Schippel

Author of The Enemy That Is Me and

From a Prodigal Church to a Prodigal Nation

Preface

This book has been in my heart and spirit to share for many years. I knew that it was a part of my purpose in life. Things have to make sense to me, and sometimes my life made no sense. So in search of making sense as well as seeking my purpose and destiny, I reach out to you, not giving the pain and the embarrassment of my past any room to keep me from sharing with you so that God can bring hope and restoration into areas of your life where you may have felt broken and discarded so many times that it left you speechless and without enough hope to try again. It is a place where you resolve in your heart that you will not remarry again, but the worst can be behind you. You have come too far to give up now. Don’t tie God’s hands; trust Him.

Introduction

I am writing what I know and the lessons I have learned. The ways God has kept me sane. I guess some may argue what I just stated, but I can laugh and be grateful that I am still okay and attempting, with God’s help to be all He created me to be, and you can too.

This book, A Meeting Like No Other, is the result of many years of walking for real what I am writing about. I never wanted to share this because of the critics and how it could make me look. People come from all different walks of life. You could be rich, poor, or maybe somewhere in the middle. We had different upbringings, mindsets, and beliefs, which we were taught or came to our conclusions, which molded our ideas and unique way of thinking. Truths and lies mixed, and parts of the process of growing and healing are sorting through these beliefs in hopes for the truths of God’s Word to change our thinking and ultimately heal us and our life-long patterns into new patterns. I am not writing this book to become famous or to make money, but I am writing this book to help those who have a secret. It could be a secret so enormous that sharing it even to get help can be the ultimate rejection and criticism of a lifetime.

No one knows how hard sharing is unless they have been there. Even meeting new people can be challenging, and you have to use wisdom to share or not. Getting to a place where you can share and not feel the pain of shame connected can be complicated. People who have been through a divorce several times hide it as best as they can because sharing can be as painful as knowing divorce has become a part of your history and why we are who we are. The pain endured by divorce can heal, but the history of divorce can leave a scar, and scars can also remind us of God’s faithfulness in what He has brought us through. And scars remain.

I sincerely want to share to help heal, not to bring condemnation. Those of us who have experienced divorce many times can do a fine job without help from others.

My heartfelt desire is to help, not hurt. To change how you think about yourself and inform others who are so judgmental, to give them a glimpse of what it is like to have been divorced so many times.

God bless you for reading this book; it may be challenging for some of you because of the pain that may surface. I pray for you as you read, for I know that God has brought you to this book for a reason, and I also know His intention for bringing you to these tender places is to heal you and not to hurt you more. To give you peace and a great future no matter how old you are.

Keeping that in mind, I can say the purpose of this book is to help in the healing process and journey. Healing is needed for those who have been divorced not only once or twice but have been divorced several times, which is what A Meeting Like No Other is all about.

Before you read any further, the Lord would have me tell you to pray first. Pray for God to reveal the truth about where you are in your healing journey, for He only knows what you need and what you are ready for. If you do not have a relationship with Jesus, pray to receive Him as your Savior and repent for anything that comes to your mind. Ask for forgiveness, receive Jesus, and understand what He did for you as He died on the cross; He took our sins and paid the price for us so that we could have a relationship with God the Father; there is no other way except through Jesus. Like the woman at the well, let this be your meeting time with Jesus, who knows your story. Through this book, Jesus has come to meet you at the well. He knows what we are thirsty for, and He knows it has been a lifetime of hurts and disappointment, a time of frustration and hopelessness. He is for you, not against you.

Once you have invited Him into your heart after this prayer, ask for the Holy Spirit to fill you and direct you into all truth. The healing begins. You don’t need a fancy prayer; you need to talk to Him in your own words and have a heart of sincerity. He can heal your broken heart; He desires to do that. But you have to, like the woman at the well, begin to interact with Him and have a conversation. When you do, He will speak back to you. Just get quiet and listen. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use this book to talk to and bless you as you draw closer and closer to the One who knows all your details yet still loves you. I love how a friend of mine puts this; she says, I love you because, despite my mess, you still love me. I tell her I am a mess too. We all are a