How many memories do we have of feeling ignored, inferior, and just plain worthless as women? No doubt, these stories could fill volumes of books. Even though we’ve tried to brush them off or forget them, they can eventually take their toll. And we consciously or unconsciously alter our behavior because of them. We try to speak more softly. We hesitate to voice our opinion, even when asked. We suffer in silence.
But this is not God’s intent for us. In his eyes, we are precious women of worth who are loved beyond measure. He wants to heal our wounds and restore us. This week, we will unpack a few stories in the Bible that illustrate how God values the healing of women. We’ll discuss some of Jesus’s encounters with women and see how his healing power changed their lives.
Our stories come from the book of Luke, which has long been called the woman’s best New Testament friend because in it, Jesus elevated the women of the first century from their low, secondary positions to valuable members of God’s kingdom. Let’s see how he does that.
Today, let’s look at Luke 8, where Jesus heals a young girl. In the latter verses, we find Jesus among a crowd who desperately wanted something from him: healing. From the crowd emerged Jairus, a leader of the synagogue. His little girl was gravely ill, and he desperately asked, even begged, Jesus to come see about the young twelve-year-old girl.
With a crowd in desperate need of his help, Jesus could have refused. Instead, he valued the healing of a girl so much that he immediately went with Jairus. Unfortunately, the young girl had died by the time they arrived at the house and all who were present were grieving. Instead of offering condolences, Jesus had other plans.
In the room with the seemingly dead girl, three disciples, and two parents, Jesus lovingly said, “Child, arise.” And she immediately got up.
This passage shows the spectrum of who God cares about—he cares about everyone across the board. In the preceding passage, Luke recounts the healing of a man controlled by demons. It’s no coincidence that we see the healing of both genders. In fact, this is Luke’s pattern in many of his passages that recount Jesus’s miracles. The healing of a woman follows the healing of a man. Why would Luke do that? He wants to show that women are just as valuable as men in God’s eyes. This healing of Jairus’s daughter shows the value of human life to Jesus. He cares about our healing, no matter how old we are. This isn’t to pit men against women or vice versa. We all need the healing and restoration of Jesus, and he wants to restore all who come to him. In Christ, we all have equal standing, no matter our ethnicity, our gender, or even our socioeconomic status (Galatians 3:28–29).
There are things I have done in my life that caused me to hide from God. I refused to pray, I didn’t dare step in a church and I couldn’t bring myself to open my Bible because every Scripture brought shame. Yet, I continued to see God work miracles in my life. Not until I put aside the guilt, realized that God already knew how I felt and He was simply waiting for me to cry out to Him for forgiveness, did I receive peace. He came to me PERSONALLY and showered me with love as if I had never left. What was once my most embarrassing moment in life is now my biggest testimony. God loves you … NO MATTER WHAT! He was beside me the entire time just waiting for me to reach out to Him. THANK YOU LORD!
This Holy Book, where life is found
Rips up the hardness in my heart’s ground
Voiceless pondering, things of old
Solitary mining for treasures and gold
Lonely places in a discarded life
Filling with redemption as the bride of Christ
Hope and mercy, graceful love
Lands on the runway from Heaven above
No need to hurry or scrape for a chance
Your desires are known by a Father’s glance
Abiding in strength, when others see weak
I am learning to listen to a Man who was meek
Yeshua, Jesus, Mighty Counselor, I Am
Light in the darkness, like pearls in a clam
A heart that is open, and eyes that will see
Partake in the goodness meant for you and me
Do you sleep in peacefulness, and wake full of joy?
Life is a gift, like a child’s Christmas toy
Morning by morning, new life and new day
Truth and purpose, on my knees when I pray
No matter your worry, your sins, or your doubt
This Lover of souls will not leave you without
Redemption comes to you right where you are
In the middle of darkness, in spite of the scars
The wounds that burn will find ways to inspire
Your path has been lit by God’s Holy fire
He will use you to bring justice and might
Take up your armor, and prepare to fight
Your orders were written in the ink of blood
Rise and renew what sin has undone
We will never be ready with perfection in view
But sowing with hope, He will make all things new.
https://sharetostrengthen.com/2018/09/04/life-in-spite-of-the-scars/
WOW! How beautiful this is! Thanks for sharing. Love it.
I am struggling to find my place in the world after overcoming a serious of work injuries, addiction to pain killers, a problematic marriage, and difficulty finding work that I can do. I want to have peace and give myself to the world. I worked 30 years in the veterinary field as a nurse and do not have the computer skills that employers want for a desk job that would enable me to secure a career immediately. My husband threatens to divorce me because of his fear of my personal growth and his own emotional scars. I have stress and anxiety. God has brought friends and some opportunities to serve into my life, but I feel I need to support myself because of my marital instability and for my own piece of mind. I am waiting for God to show me the way.
Keep praying up and praising up in your circumstance. Stay hopeful. Gods timing is perfect. He has his plan and trust in Him. I know it’s hard. You are strong and faithful.
In my 20’s I was in a relationship and married. I discovered he was having an affair after being married less than a year. I was so hurt and felt discarded although divorce was frowned upon by his family, my family and the church, I chose it. I really didn’t want to be with someone who broke such a vow and a man who acknowledged he wanted to have both a mistress and a wife.
The lie Satan whispers is “you aren’t good enough”. The scars of insecurity bubble up even still today, but mostly, these scars hardened my heart and built an over overcompensation in independence in my marriage and life today. I am not easily submissive to my role as wive allowing myself to trust fully, let my strength and guard down, even though my husband in my second marriage is not at all like my first. There is always that creeping in little lie there. It shows up in my work, my relationships, my self-esteem, my views of my body.
I turn to my faith and the word of God to level set my heart, mind and soul daily to keep it in check. I am enough as a daughter of God and Jesus sustains me each and everyday I pray to Him. I lean on that!!!!
I couldn’t have said it better than you already did – you ARE good enough because you are a child of God. It sounds like we have very similar challenges on our hearts so know that I will be praying that the both of us find comfort in God and his truth that we are wonderfully made.
when we look at our sins today, most of them are the results of past hurts.
I am overly independent, because I was abandoned.
I am jealous, because I wanted not to be abandoned.
I am arrogant, because I didn’t want others to know I was abandoned.
I am judgmental, because I felt I was judged.
I am not gentle, because I felt toughness helped me survive.
I despite discipline because I didn’t know what discipline was and certainly it didn’t help me survive.
I am not patience, because I wanted to have what others had when they had it.
I am greedy, because after I had what others had, I wanted more than what they had, so they knew I was good enough.
Until Jesus returns, sin in this world will be continue to turn its wheel, and continue to cause hurts which create more sins. The wheel will turn and turn for generations to come to no end.
Jesus came. He stood between us and sins. He declared we were separated from our sins by him going to the cross and died in our place. His death declared our death to sin.
When we sin, know that the sin we are committing will cause hurt to others same way that was done to us in the past, and remember Christ on the cross, just let sin go. It no longer belongs to you, you can stop the vicious cycle of hurts by letting it go by the power of Christ.
Thank you for your words. You said what I was trying to that my sins don’t belong to me by the power of Christ.
I think that women struggle with feeling worthy of God’s love and so often dismissed because of Eve’s sin. We need to let go of the guilt we feel for those women who were here before us. God doesn’t punish us for other’s trespasses. And we need to quit punishing ourselves – God gave Eve to Adam as a helpmate. They were joined in purpose. Women have been treated as unworthy traditionally because of original sin. Jesus changed all that.
I have been hurt many times in my past. I’ve been lied to, abandoned, betrayed, and put down. People have stabbed me in the back more than I would like to admit. These all caused scars for me, emotional and physical, and I still haven’t completely overcome it all. I lost sight of my value and my worth, and any confidence I’d had was completely gone. I now have very bad anxiety and depression, I’m possessive, I get jealous relatively easily, and my self image has still not been restored. The situations I find to be the most seemingly hopeless are the ones that involve viewing myself as worthy and beautiful, as well as ones that revolve around losing more people in my life and being hurt by those I trusted and cared about the most. God helps me to deal with all of this by showing me that those people’s opinions and love are not what’s important. God’s love and opinions are what’s important. He loves me and I am worthy and beautiful in his eyes. What other people have made me believe about myself is not true. I pray that God will help me to drown out the lies I have about myself and help me to see what is true.
God, I just thank you for this study because sometimes you can live with scars for so long you forget they are there. I have certainly done this. You God have reminded me that we all have value and our testimony is important. Just as you made the woman with the issue of blood speak and share her testimony, God I pray too that I will share the goodness and healing that you have done and are doing in and through my life. In this way hopelessness is being defeated in my life.
It’s so significant to me the symbolism of a 12 year old child going into what would have been considered fully matured age contrasted with this woman who has a fully matured issue, both situations seeming hopeless but you being able to see and meet both needs. God I pray for hope in both new and old areas of my life and in the lives of the women around me that you so dearly value. Thank you got seeing, valuing and restoring us.
I have let my past dictate my future for many years. I am now celebrating recovery and coming fully clean to live out Gods plan instead of my own. God has healed my wounds, I failed to let it go and trust him 100%. Now, I have given God full control.
My health is such an issue. Most of it is genetic. I know God can heal me and he does but them something else comes up. I pray daily and thank him for healing me. I ask for wisdom. I pray for my doctors. It’s been over 15 years
I trust him.