A Message to the Bowed-Down Woman: Your Life Has Value
For the woman who feels behind in life, a healing in Luke 13 speaks to a value that never depended on a timeline.
By Empowering Everyday Women Online Editors
Even in the bowed-down seasons, your life has value.
Who gave us that timeline? You know the one. It says we should be married by a certain age and established in a career. At some arbitrary point, we should be enjoying a home, a family and some savings. When life refuses to follow that plan, the questions start piling up. We think about the relationships that ended, the opportunities that passed, and the years spent caring for everyone else while our own dreams waited.
Before long, we are measuring our whole lives against that timeline and coming up short. Scripture offers a better way to see ourselves. It begins with a woman who waited 18 years.
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath when He noticed her. She had been bent over for almost two decades and was unable to stand up straight (Luke 13:11). In 18 years, children grow up, families change and neighbors move away. Her condition stayed the same.
Jesus called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” (Luke 13:12, NLT). The Greek word behind “healed,” apolelysai, means released or set free. It appears in the perfect tense, conveying an accomplished release with continuing results. Then Scripture says, “he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God!” (Luke 13:13, NLT).
The leader of the synagogue objected to a healing on the Sabbath. Jesus reminded the crowd that each of them would untie an ox or a donkey on the Sabbath to lead it to water. Then He said, “This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?” (Luke 13:16, NLT).
“Daughter of Abraham” appears nowhere else in the New Testament. Jesus spoke it publicly, in front of people who had watched her bent over for years. He named her place among God’s covenant people. Though He said it after her healing, she had been a daughter of Abraham through all eighteen years of suffering. Her dignity came before her healing.
Many of us live bent under something we have carried a long time: disappointment, loneliness, a life that has not turned out the way we planned. It becomes easy to believe our worth is on hold until our circumstances change. We tell ourselves we will be happy when we get married, lose the weight, earn more or finally get it together. Luke 13 tells a different story. Your worth was established long before your situation improved.
David understood this. He wrote, “My future is in your hands” (Psalm 31:15, NLT), while he was surrounded by distress and enemies. He did not know how his story would end, and he placed his future in God’s hands anyway. You can place yours there too.
Eighteen years passed, and Jesus still saw the bowed-down woman. Her life had value in the bent-over years and on the day she stood up straight. Yours is valuable too, even in the middle of your unfinished journey.
Let’s pray.
Father, thank You for seeing me and loving me right where I am. Help me release the pressure to measure my life against any standard that is not Yours. Heal the places where rejection, disappointment and loneliness have made me question my worth. Teach me to be grateful where I am while I trust You with the days ahead. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
