A Bleeding Woman’s Story

8. Bleeding WomanBased on Matthew 5, Luke 8.

The Scriptures tell us that while Jesus was on earth, he cared about every person he met: man or woman, slave or free, young or old, sick or healthy, guilty or innocent. In particular, there are many wonderful stories about how Jesus met the needs of women…

One day, while Jesus taught, a large crowd was following and pressing around Him. There was a woman in the crowd who had been bleeding for twelve years without any relief. She had suffered under the care of many doctors and had spent everything she had, yet instead of getting better, her condition continued to worsen. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his clothes because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

In her culture, a woman having her period was ‘unclean’—she couldn’t touch other people, pray in the temple, or be intimate with her husband. Her shame was obvious to everyone. In addition to her physical body, what was healed in the woman’s life? Some women’s shame is very obvious, but for others, the shame is hidden. Either way, don’t you think all of us have shame in our lives? Most of the time, we can’t remove the shame on our own. But Jesus sees our shame, He feels compassion on us, and He will remove the shame for us—just like He did for this woman.

“Bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”-Isaiah 61:3

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