She has suffered for a lifetime.* Each 18-year segment of our lives, fertile with potential, yields a bounty of experiences. Given 18 years, we can reach a distant destination, achieve a desired goal. We can take up new callings, relinquish what limits us, become more fully ourselves. In 18 years we journey from birth through high school, then from young adulthood into middle age, and onward into rolling fields of older age with untold discoveries and learning and loss. We have generous opportunities for multiple beginnings and endings within a single lifetime.
The woman has been bent over, half herself, for one of her entire lifetimes. She has adapted to her condition, accommodated her diminishment, for so long that she sometimes forgets to hope for more. But Jesus never forgets. He calls her to return, just as he calls to you and me. Can you hear him? Listen: “You are free.”
Not after but before he helps her to stand up, he says it: You are already free. Even before we reach out for it the gift has been given. Even though we forget, healing is possible. We are so used to hobbling around with bent and broken spirits, to being less than we truly are, that we sometimes forget we can stop being only half ourselves. We can come back into our life. A new and different world awaits. All we must do is stand up and receive it.
- From what suffering do I “forget” to expect healing?
- How have I experienced God saying, “You are free?”
- To what am I being called in my next “lifetime” of years?
—Kayla McClurg, Passage by Passage, Year C
See all of Kayla’s books available in our bookstore.
