Relationships are God’s gifts – reflecting his love for us, his children, and for the world. God’s love is our example for all relationships including marriage, parental love, friendship, and everything else.The ProblemThe problem is that, because we are imperfect and fallen, there is a dark side to this love. God created us free to reject him. This same freedom is crucial also to human love . Love be stowed without compulsion or guilt enables fulfilment in human relationships, when good choices are freely made. This is a way in which we find joyful life in God’s name. The problem is that, at times, we exercise the freedom to be uncaring to those we are close to. Human love is not always faithful the way that God’s love is always faithful. This applies to different types of relationship.The TextLarissa will take a deep dive into this complex text, considering:• The highly vulnerable circumstances of the accused girl (not woman) in this text.• That the Pharisees took advantage of this incident to trick Jesus .• Why the Pharisees might have had such a sudden change of heart which prompted this sudden reluctance to continue the trial.• And, finally, speculating on what might have happened next for this girl.The Good News!The first piece of good news is that, when we sin (even really badly), God often redeems terriblesituations. When we’ve done some thing really bad, we need to respond by sincerely saying sorry and turning back to God in our heart. Often an alternative comes about thanks to God, which offers us a different sort of blessing that we didn’t expect. If you are reeling from a bad decision, maybe the out come will be better in the months or years to come.The second piece of good news is that a better title for this piece of scripture is: “Jesus Does Not Condemn”. We tend to be more scandalised by sexual sins but we are all sinners and Jesus died for us so that we may all avoid condemnation. Our record of wrongs was written in the sand but has been erased by Jesus.