Used Or Used?

Webster's Dictionary defines used as:
1- Employed in accomplishing something.
2-That has endured use.
I'd like to introduce you to a woman who understood both definitions.
You will find her in John Chapter 4.
She was a woman who had a past that her whole community was aware of.  She was married and divorced 5 times, and was currently living with a man who she was not married to. 
She was a woman scorned, and a woman shunned. 
But then she met the Saviour.
In fact, in verse 4 of John Chapter 4, the Bible tells us that 'he, (meaning Jesus) must needs go through Samaria.'
Jesus sought out this woman.  A woman who others purposely avoided.  A woman who was mistreated so badly, she chose to go to the well in the middle of the afternoon instead of in the coolness of the morning.
The people in her town were well aware of her past, and her present lifestyle, and chose to avoid her.  Her community condemned her because of her multiple relationships with men.  Maybe they thought that a woman used, is a useless woman? 
Jesus didn't think so. 
When you first read her interaction with Jesus, there is a hardness about her. I've learned that the hardness in a person is sometimes the result of being hurt deeply. I'm sure she was surprised to see a man sitting by the well, because she purposely went to the well while others were not there.  She is surprised that this man is even willing to speak to her, let alone make a request of her.  She asks him why a person like him, would be speaking to a person like her?  But Jesus is about to show her a love she has never known.  And the beautiful picture of this Scripture is that Jesus reveals Who He is to this woman.  God, manifested in flesh, reveals to her, a used-up, sinful woman, that He is the Messiah!
The boundaries that chained this woman in her community suddenly fell to the ground.  It no longer mattered to her what other's thought of her, she was going to tell everyone in town Who she just met!
The 'used' woman became a woman used by God to bring other's to Him.
And because she was willing to be used by God, many believed on Christ.
An encounter with Jesus will change your life.
Don't let others define you by your past.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says-Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
There were a lot of assumptions made about the Samaritan woman by those who knew her.  They condemned her.
I like to view her as a woman who desperately wanted to be loved.  And she found that love in Christ.
-But that's just me.