As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,[a] but no one could heal her. 44She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. Luke 8:43-44
We are all very familiar with this story. What an amazing healing after 12 years of pain and bondage! We meet this woman at the end of her long struggle. However, I believe the preceding 12 years truly tell the story. At times on her journey of healing this moment, standing face to face with her healer must have seemed worlds away. Was her healing simply in this moment? Or, had a sovereign God been preparing her for this encounter for all those years that she felt left alone? Had this passage read ‘a woman had suffered from bleeding for the past 5 minutes’ this healing would not have been so remarkable.
45"Who touched me?" Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you."
46But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me."
47Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Luke 8:45-47
I find it quite strange that the reaction to this apparent deliverance was fear and insecurity! She was just set free from 12 years of suffering! Where is the jumping up and down? Should she not be dancing in the streets? Yet, we find her trembling in fear, afraid that she will be discovered. I would suggest that her deliverance was still another word away! God had something more in mind for this woman than to stop her bleeding, He wished to reach her suffering heart, to speak something of himself to her and to declare her identity in Him.
48Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace."
He called her daughter! That was the deliverance! This was the healing that started for her 12 years earlier. All the times over these 12 years that this woman had felt abandoned, alone, and rejected her Dad was at work for her good. He was orchestrating this scene! He had brought her to the end of all she knew, so that stripped of all else she could hear the tender, loving, and powerful voice of her dad proclaiming that she was HIS. A woman who entered this story broken, despised, and alone encounters her healer in her greatest weakness and it was here that God spoke life to her wounded heart! She came to him nothing and left a daughter of the King… a princess! Now that’s deliverance!!! Oh yeah, and her bleeding stop…
