October 8th

Jesus heals a woman

             Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.  And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”  When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.  But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?  And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Luke 13:10-17

             

                Eighteen years is a long time to be sick.  That is longer than I have been a parent and I can barely remember what life was like back in “Ye Olde Days” before I had kids.  Back in those days I had my own chronic illness to deal with.  As a teenager I developed tendonitis in both shoulders and both knees.  I was in constant pain for nearly 15 years as my shoulders and knees took turns erupting in pain and driving me to distraction.

            Men and women are incredibly resilient and can learn to live with just about anything.  That does not mean that a chronic condition does not impact or change you.  When someone is in constant pain, they learn how to function and how to get things done when they don’t feel good.  However, a lot of times they learn how to do this by turning a part of themselves off.  They will often shut down a part of their heart…a part of their soul…they often just disengage from hope and simply consider God from a distance.

            The voices in my head were non-stop.  What is the point in hoping if nothing is ever going to change?  What is the point of praying if the answer will always be “No?”  The world does not stop, life does not slow down, just because I am uncomfortable and God has had ample opportunities over the years to fix what ails me.  He has not so either He does not exist or He does not care or I have angered Him somehow and this condition is the Almighty taking his vengeance.

            None of those are true, yet if you have been in pain for years, decades even, it can seem like the only reasonable conclusion.  When everything in your life revolves around the question, “What will my body allow me to do?” your condition can become your calling, your diagnosis can become your identity and everything else can fade into the distance.

            I am in awe of the woman in this passage because she still held on to hope, even after 18 years.  She heard of Jesus and believed and made sure that she was able to meet Him, even if it meant ridicule from the authorities and public humiliation.  She was willing to go.  She was willing to ask.  She was willing to risk another disappointment because life on the other side was more than worth it.

            Most of our kids have conditions that will last for their entire lives.  This is the hand we were dealt and most of us will not be able to change that in the course of our lifetime.  What we must remember is to not give up on hope.  Their stories, no matter how challenging or heart-breaking, are not finished here yet.  They have things to accomplish on this earth that we are unaware of.  They have lives to connect with and hearts to heal and inspiration to spread and compassion to be grown.  They have a purpose here because otherwise Jesus would have brought them home already.  They have a life.  They have a purpose and it is we, their families, who must remember to hope in the goodness of God as He carries them through this life.

             

A moment to reflect:

How do you get through the day without breaking down?  What have you had to sacrifice in order to be functional?