I was made fun of from the time I was in 1st grade to the end of high school. Everything about me was fair game. The way I talked, my weight, and the glasses on my face made me the brunt of the classroom jokes.
Between school and home life it was the perfect storm for my self-doubt and self-esteem. Everything was magnified between the two.
Depending on what was said, who said it, and when it was said, we can find ourselves believing a lie about who we are for a lifetime.
Think about the woman whose medical condition became her identity in Luke 8:43-48. She was not seen as a human being with thoughts, emotions, and I need to be loved. This woman was ostracized and often judged and criticized. I imagine gossip may have talked about her behind her back. She was isolated from others, everyone avoided her because of her blood issue she was considered unclean. She likely experienced loneliness, fear, and shame.
This woman endured her condition for 12 years. Mark 5:26 she suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and has spent all that she had, but instead of getting better she grew worse.
In of her condition, she had a faith to believe that if she touched the hem of Jesus’s garment, she would be healed.
This woman had resilient hope and it paid off. Immediately after she touched Jesus robe, her bleeding stopped, and she was made free from her suffering. Jesus’s response was “who touched me?
An omnipresent Savior ask a question of finite people. It wasn’t because He was unsure, whose hands touch the edge of his robe. He knows everything. Jesus knew the exact moment the woman’s fingers touches garment and caused power to leave his body.
He knew she had spent more than a decade in the shadows of society. He knew she was weighed down by her condition. He knew she needed to be publicly redefined. Luke 8:46 says Jesus persisted “someone touched me, I know that power has gone out from me.”
Jesus left the woman no choice, she had to make her presence known. She fell at the feet of Jesus in the presence of the crowd. Jesus could have chastised her for touching Him. he could have publicly condemned her action, but instead, He patiently listen to her. Then He said. “ Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
Jesus not only declared her healed, He called her daughter. He didn’t say “unnamed woman or woman with a blood issue,” He selected an intimate and tender term.
For 12 years, this unnamed woman was an outcast and society. No one would have wanted to be near her, yet Jesus publicly acknowledge that she touched Him, then He applauded her faith and called her daughter. With that single act, He said, you are not alone. You are not isolated. You are a daughter of God.
When we place our faith in Jesus, we too become daughters of God. It doesn’t matter if we were previously considered outcast, or lived underneath a label placed on us by humanity. Embracing our identity of daughters of God far out ways the identity that has been or will ever be placed on us. With Him, we are full loved and redefined. He is our heavenly father, and what He says about us matters the most.
From Pity to Praise 