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Finding The Perfect Relationship
Wednesday, February 25, 2026 by Sarah Schwerin

Categories: Life Lessons

After Christmas, stores replace snowflakes, ornaments, and wrapping paper with chocolate, flowers, and everything red, pink, and heart-covered. They’re getting ready for February, the month that celebrates romantic relationships.

During the early days of my relationship with my husband, I enjoyed the giddy feelings, shy glances, and electricity when our fingers brushed in the movie theater. I could not foresee the inevitable tears and angry words. Fortunately, we worked through our issues. Though our relationship is far from perfect, we’ve been together for twenty-five years, and we are entering the exciting empty-nester years.

Love between imperfect humans can be complicated and stressful. Relationships can crumble and crack under life’s pressures. Many of us carry relational scars.

In John 4, we read about a woman who carried deep scars from past relationships. She trudged to the well in the midday heat, unwilling or perhaps even unable to go when most women went. Others may have shunned her, judged her, or ignored her. She must have worn her shame like a blanket, as suffocating as the heat of the day, as she plodded through her life alone and friendless.

The Bible tells us that she went to Jacob’s well, about a half mile from the town. She would’ve passed other wells on her way¹, but perhaps she desired the remoteness, the opportunity to be free from the whispers and glances of others. Or perhaps, like first-century readers of this story, she remembered that Jacob’s well was the place where Jacob had met his beloved Rachel. The patriarchs Moses and Isaac had found their wives at wells too. Did she hope that today would be the beginning of a new relationship, freeing her from her shame and isolation? Or had she given up all hope?

As I read the woman’s story, I squinted into the distance with her. A man sat near the well. Every muscle in me tensed. Like the woman, relationships have wounded me, and I’ve feared the pain of loving again. I’ve worn a cloak of shame and isolation.

Before I met my husband, I’d given up hope of having a romantic relationship. Betrayal by loved ones had left me raw and vulnerable, unwilling to reopen my heart.

Yet I held a small seed of hope that one day things might be better.

As she neared the well, the man’s image became clearer. The tassels hanging from his garment identified him as a Jew—an enemy of her people, the Samaritans. Nothing good could come of the encounter.

But then Jesus spoke into her brokenness.

He knew of her past. He knew her scars—the ones she caused, and the ones inflicted upon her. Jesus did not turn away but embraced her hurting, isolated being. He gave her a gift that no one would ever take away. He gave her himself, water that would quench her thirst once and for all.

That day at the well, Jesus spoke to an isolated, scarred woman. She entered a relationship, better and more fulfilling than any she’d ever had.

Jesus longs to meet us in our daily activities. He’s waiting as we trudge through our monotonous, stressful days. In His embrace, we find the relationship we’ve always been looking for. A place of comfort and belonging. A place where we are welcome despite our mistakes and wounds. A place where we can grow into who God calls us to be.

I love to see my husband smile after we’ve been apart. He takes me in his arms, and I feel safe and loved. Yet I know there’s someone who loves me more. Someone who is always with me and always will be. The God who loves me and taught me to open my heart to others.

Human love is wonderful, even when stressful and complicated.

But God’s love is perfect and all we need.

When a new year begins, and the stores display hearts, chocolates, and flowers, know that February is the month of love. But God’s love has no season. It’s forever, and He’s waiting for you to fall in love with Him.

He’s loved you since the beginning of time.

“Long ago the Lord said to Israel: ‘I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself,’” Jeremiah 31:3 NLT.

¹Noel Jesse Heikkinen, Unchained: If Jesus Has Set Us Free, Why Don’t We Feel Free? (Colora

do Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2017).

*Picture thanks to Pixabay.com

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Comments

Candyce Carden From GA At 3/18/2026 10:14:27 AM

Very touching and creative, as well as encouraging.

Reply by: Sarah Schwerin

Thank you for reading.

Yvonne Morgan From Oklahoma At 3/16/2026 9:21:13 AM

Wonderful message Sarah. Thank you for sharing it.

Reply by: Sarah Schwerin

Thanks for reading. May the Lord bless you this week.

Katherine Pasour From North Carolina At 3/11/2026 9:00:19 PM

Such a beautiful and tender message, Sarah. Yours is a past many of us can identify with. It wasn't until I recognized the depth of my heavenly Father's love for me, that I was able to love my husband as he deserved to be loved and felt worth to be loved by him.