I'm fighting the light inside of me. Of course, it's all I see when I look around, when I look in the mirror where it's back. You know this is a women-infused radio, where women in Marketplace connect with purpose and spirit, where the conversation covers all things women, business, and fascinating thing. And now, your host, Christy Lynn Olson.
Hey, everyone, this is Christy Lynn Olson. Have you downloaded the new Women Infused app? It's available both on the Apple Store and Google Play. My passion is to see God's daughters take back territory stolen by the enemy and empower them to live healed and whole in every area of their life.
I'm gathering the most amazing women in this community of broadcasters to help teach Marketplace women what they need to know about living out their best life in health and in wellness and in their faith in the workplace. More networks are going to be added as we grow. You see, our goal is to reach 1 million women around the globe through this free app, and you can help by telling all your friends about the app and downloading it yourself. So go to your favorite app store, either Apple Store or Google Play, and download our free app today.
Make sure you tell your friends and join the sisterhood of spirit-filled women of influence. Thank you so much, and we look forward to seeing you on the app. Welcome to Women Infused Radio, episode 11. I'm calling today's episode just a touch, how to press in and grab your future, even when you feel like an outcast, unwelcome, unwanted, and perhaps overnight.
I'm getting real on this episode. I've had conversations with so many women lately that it makes me angry. Women who are feeling, not angry at them, but women who are feeling a sense of rejection in their calling or business path, feeling unworthy, outcast, devalued, silenced, and we need to learn, especially as women of faith, how to activate our faith and grab our healing, grab our future, so we don't miss our moment to rise up and step into a new position of leadership and kingdom calling. I'm here to tell you, emotional wounds run far deeper than the physical.
Things that have been said to you, projected on you, even things that were meant to curse you, have what we call muscle memory from any sort of trauma you may have experienced, even if you didn't realize that's what it was at the time. If you've ever been hurt emotionally, your muscles actually have a physical memory of that, especially if you've held onto it or pressed it down. Deep wounds of emotional and spiritual abuse from others, even others in authority who we were all taught to respect and not to challenge, even spiritual abuse from leaders in the workplace or even the church. It's a secret shame that grows deeper over time if not dealt with.
At least that's my story, part of my story anyway, and certainly not the end of my story. You see, my story is just beginning. The most debilitating, painful, and silent abuse I ever experienced happened in the church. Most people don't know because I was forced and shamed and keeping it to myself and a few close supporters.
It was a spiritually abusive work environment. It was all meant to just go silently away, although very calculated, hoping no one would question it. Some of my supporters understood because they had experienced it themselves, yet they remained silent. Others suggested I take legal action saying I had a real case.
Some silently affirmed me and prayed, while still others quietly looked the other way, too worried about what it might do to their reputation and leadership if they stood up against it. Lies were told, voices were silenced, truth was covered up. All responses were painful, yet I'm now choosing to see the lessons and not silence another generation. No more secrets, especially for women.
No more secrets. Your story may not be as dramatic or invasive as mine, but it's still your story. And a good friend told me that if we choose not to tell our stories, they are just secrets. As a way of sharing my story, I want to tell you a story of a woman who met Jesus and literally grabbed her healing by faith.
I want to teach you to be free, free to be all that God has for you, regardless of what may have happened or been spoken over you. Whatever was spoken over you with the intent to curse cannot stick to God's anointed. I want to thank Pastor Lynn Atten for recently speaking that truth over my life. This is a story of empowerment over woundedness, hurt, or rejection.
A story of empowerment and of faith to learn how to reach out and grab your inheritance as a daughter of the king. Loved, wanted, and completely set free. Our story starts in Mark chapter 5, verse 21. It's the story of Jairus and his daughter.
See, Jairus was a man who had a 12-year-old daughter, and she was sick and dying. So Jairus asked Jesus, he said, my little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. So Jesus went with him.
Now I need this out right there. I find that fascinating already. Here, Jesus is in the midst of a busy ministry, and it just simply says, Jesus went with him. Just like that, no questions asked.
Jesus, who told other people to follow me, is also willing to follow us, to meet us where we are, to go where he's needed most. When you are that kind of a leader, a servant leader, people will naturally follow you without even being asked. Sometimes the best way to lead is by following, though. For a time, I remember I just needed to serve as I took time to heal, to breathe, and to work through my own issues.
You can stand on your soapbox all day long shouting, I'm a leader, I'm a leader, to anyone who will listen. But Jesus may be saying to you, yes, you're a leader, and today I need you to serve, to meet the needs of another who needs just a touch of grace, to wash someone's feet and to lead like he leads. It's true, we are all leaders, but we are leaders within the rank to which we have been assigned, within our own circle of influence. We can't all be generals all the time, or today Jesus may be saying to you, I just need you to rest for a season, to be still and know that I am God and you are not.
Sometimes we need to check our motives for leading and make sure we are not operating out of our own woundedness or fear of loss or rejection. Most days it's not about you, it's about him. And that's not rejection, that's having a heart of worship and honoring the God who has a divine order for everything under the sun. All right, let's go back to verse 24.
It says, a large crowd followed and pressed around him. Our story takes a little detour here now. A super large crowd was pressing in around Jesus, and that word pressed actually means to choke or to crush. So I think Jesus had grown accustomed to people pressing in, touching, tugging, jostling for position.
We can all relate to that. Life is just pressing in all around him from all sides. Some are there to ask for healing for others, some just to witness another miracle, some just to be part of the crowd, some to ask for perhaps the hardest thing of all, healing for themselves. How many of us at times find it hard to ask for help, let alone healing?
We often don't like to admit that we're hurting or we need help, men and women alike. We're going to be going to meet a woman who knew she needed help. She needed a savior. She needed a miracle to free her.
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding or hemorrhaging for 12 years. Now just a woman, she didn't have a name, at least we don't know what her name was. All we know is she had a serious medical sickness for 12 years, the same number of years that Jairus' daughter had been alive, by the way. A girl who was just entering her womanhood contrasted here with a woman who had been suffering the negative effects of womanhood for the same amount of time.
Coincidence? I think not. Jesus always tells stories and usually they have different layers, which I love. So we're going to unpack that a little bit.
You see, this woman suffered in silence and shame, emotionally and physically. She was most likely Jewish because she was very aware of the list of restrictions for a bleeding or what they called unclean woman. She was a social outcast. The Mosaic law was clear.
When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge. That's from Leviticus chapter 15, verse 25. What this meant to her was, this woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, had 12 years of being unclean. 12 years of no house guests, 12 years of no public events, no potlucks, no book clubs, card clubs, no Facebook friends, etc.
12 years of never being touched. Anything she sat on became unclean. And if anyone touched the things that she had touched, they had to wash their clothes and bathe in water and wouldn't be considered clean again until after sundown, the start of the next day. She was unwelcome and unwanted.
Feelings that I know too well. I want to tell all of you, if you've been hurt or wounded in a situation, something you need to know. Where there is a small spirit, you will often feel unwelcome and unwanted. Your gifts and your anointing pose a threat to someone who is insecure in their calling.
Now, not only was this woman unclean, but most likely gossiped about and assumed to be unclean and morally deserving of her sin. Because of her supposedly sinful life. We love to sit in judgment, don't we? I have learned that what you think you know about a person is probably only half the story.
And perhaps nowhere even close to the truth. It is so easy to think that we know what another person is walking through. But she was determined to get well and prove them all wrong. She didn't just sit around and ask for pity.
The things she had been holding in for years needed to be resolved once and for all. She needed a savior. But she turned to the medicine men of her time, into the hands of the many physicians, or also known as people we are told to trust, even especially people in the church. Verse 26 says, She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had.
Yet, instead of getting better, she grew worse. The Talmud, the Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history, had many remedies for the constant issue of blood, including off-the-wall ingredients and cures, such as, just to name a few, garden crocuses dissolved in wine, sawdust from a lotus tree mixed with the curdled milk of a rabbit, and my favorite, ashes from an ostrich egg worn around the neck in a linen bag. As long as this woman had money, someone was always willing to sell her a cure. Or swing her along with empty promises.
Some of you are staying in a job or a relationship with empty promises. That's not God's best for you. You're being used and you keep hoping for something different. You keep hoping for more.
Jesus never accepted money for a miracle. Did you know that? So if someone promises you a quick miracle or a quick fix in your situation and then quotes you a fee, that someone is not Jesus. It's not the real deal.
I don't know how much money she started with, but eventually the money ran out. She was emotionally bled dry. Nothing left to give. Can anyone relate to that?
Her resources, her time, talent, treasures were dwindling. They were gone, and her health was deteriorating. She was losing hope. Even Luke, the doctor, tells us that no one could heal her.
She couldn't even ask God to help her because by law she wasn't allowed to go into the temple. So God solved that problem for her. God loves his daughters more than we can even comprehend. He came out of the temple and into the streets where she could approach him one-on-one by sending his son Jesus to walk among us.
Verse 27 says, she had her reports about Jesus. I find this really interesting because to me it begs the question, is Jesus in the house? Now based on her statement, I wonder sometimes, even in the church or the temple, is Jesus in the house? You see, because the house where Jesus lives is meant to be a place of hope, healing, acceptance, and freedom.
Not a place where you are bled dry emotionally, physically, or spiritually. A place where everyone lives in grace under the law of his love. Not a place where the laws of God are used as weapons or tools to hurt, attack, abuse, marginalize, manipulate, or even coerce. When you are in a house where Jesus lives, you choose to abide by the law, and it allows you to walk in freedom and grace.
That's the biggest lesson I have learned. And in the case of this woman, she had been emotionally and financially bled dry by the people in her community, in her house, in the temple who she was taught to trust the most. Clearly, Jesus was not in the house. So check yourself and ask, is Jesus in the house?
Now the Amplified Bible says she heard the reports. Not only heard, but that meaning of heard in this particular case means she believed and received. So I bet she heard because good news travels fast. Here was this Jesus healing people and miracles everywhere he went.
Now the best way to spread good news, you probably have heard this, telephone, telegraph, and telewoman. The first evangelist to spread the news was a woman at the tomb. This woman was sick, poor, alone, secretly changing, and washing her bloodstained clothes as she traveled. But something deep inside her gave her faith, and she was determined to get her healing.
Have you ever seen the look of determination on a woman? Have you ever seen the look of a mama bear who lost her baby cub? I bet that was the look on this woman's face. She found her way to Capernaum, even with all the obstacles she had to overcome with traveling and being secluded and outcast.
But she found her way to the crowd, pushing, pressing, and shoving around this man they called Jesus. I have to believe that at the sight of him, she had an adrenaline rush. She was determined, she was ready, she had had enough, and her healing was just in front of her. She saw her miracle in front of her and was determined not to let it pass her by this time.
One touch, that's all she needed. Not only did she have faith, but she knew that she had to step out and go forward to seize her miracle, to receive her healing. She had to run headlong into the arms of Jesus. So she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak.
Now that word touched in the Greek means haptami, which means to fasten onto or grab. She didn't touch his hand, not his shoulder, not his sleeve, but the bottom or the very fringe of his robe. Now this probably was a tassel of his prayer garment, which would be hanging down his back, so he wouldn't even have to look at her. No one had touched her or allowed her to touch them in 12 years, yet she dared to touch the Messiah.
With a humble spirit, she touched him with the only thing she had left, her faith. Serious faith, not in herself, but in him, the great I am. Hebrews 11 verse 1 says, The word freedom here is another word for healing. She was healed from her affliction and her suffering.
At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. The Message Bible says Jesus felt energy discharging from him. It's important to understand that this didn't drain Jesus' power. It was the Greek word for dunamis power, which means the great power of God, his mighty energy, strength, or exercising his power to produce a miracle.
He didn't just sense the power flowing out of him, but it was a miraculous, life-changing power event. No one could take Jesus' power away. He had to give it away. Jesus had supernaturally empowered that woman.
He was giving her the social strength as well to stand up, be healed, and be noticed for who she was, a highly prized and highly favored daughter of King Jesus. Jesus turned around in the crowd and asked, Who touched my clothes? He hadn't felt her presence with his body, but he felt it with his spirit because a touch, just a touch of faith, could not be hidden from him. When Jesus asked that question, his disciples thought he was crazy.
They had always missed the point, even at the end when Jesus was at the cross. They were almost sarcastic now, saying, Really? You want to know who touched you? We've got hundreds of people pressing in on us, and you want us to find out who was that one person who touched you.
Like, tons of people are always touching you, and you want to know who touched your clothes right now. But Jesus knew it was a touch on purpose, not an accidental touch. But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. He knew the power had been released from him, that a miracle had been released from him, and that the woman was already healed.
I think he wanted to touch her back somehow, to validate her and celebrate her victory of faith. He knew it. She knew it. I'm sure she was frightened.
She had been silent and invisible and an outcast for so long that it seemed normal. But remember, this woman had faith and determination. So she came and fell at his feet, not to receive another healing, because she was already healed, but to say thank you with a heart of worship, a heart of gratitude. All Jesus did was ask her to come forward.
And in the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Not only was the blood gone, but the shame and the emotional rejection she had been carrying was gone as well. By confessing her story, by recognizing and speaking truth, the whole truth about her sickness and her hurts, she was healed for probably the first time in her life. Healed in whole in every way, her soul was free.
And Jesus listened with his ears, his eyes, and his heart. And then he spoke to her. Remember, rabbis did not speak to women in public. So Jesus broke another rule that needed breaking.
And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has healed you. He called her daughter. This is the only gospel account in the entire Bible where Jesus addresses a woman as daughter. In the greatest sense, this was a personal family term.
And the message was, she was worth stopping for, she was worth listening to, she was worth ministering to, and she was worth healing. It's also important to know that Jesus didn't take credit for her healing. He credited her faith. We need to participate in our own healing, whether it's spiritual, emotional, or physical healing that we need.
We can't do it without him, and he won't do it without us participating. It's a team effort. He waits for us to reach out to him. Don't put your faith in the garment he was wearing.
Jesus healed with water, mud, spit. a word, a touch, not wanting us to make a ritual out of something. These things were all just conduits of his power, not the power itself. Remember when she said, if I may touch with his clothes, I shall be whole.
She established a point of contact to release her faith and receive from him. Where's your point of contact? Faith demands action to be released. And a point of contact gave her a conductor through which the power of God could flow.
It is like the wire from power plant to the light that brings the power to you. Her point of contact got her attention off her problem and onto her answer. Oh, how we love to get so caught up with our problems sometimes that we never move on to the answer. And sometimes, frankly, we find comfort in the problem because it's what we know.
We need to believe, receive, and then retrieve the answer and the healing we are expecting. Notice these are action words, not passive words. And the same thing stands true to finding your purpose. We need to believe, receive, and retrieve the purpose and the answer that we are expecting.
Just one touch, that's all we need. The answer or the healing may not come immediately every time, but this point of contact we have with the true power source always sets things in motion. If your believing is not to the point of action, then all it is is dead faith. Your action of faith may need to continue over a period of time, but don't get discouraged.
Be determined. Here is where most people miss it. Not only do you receive by faith, but you have to maintain what you have by faith. Like the maintenance on your car to keep it running, you have to maintain anything you've received.
So having been healed and saved by faith, she was now sent. Jesus said, go in peace and be freed from your suffering. Jesus publicly blessed her. No more hiding, free to be all that God had in store for her.
Notice he didn't say free from ever suffering or hurting again, but she was free from this hurt that had kept her bound and isolated for so long. After just one touch, she could now stand up straight having believed, and she didn't leave empty-handed. Sometimes we think God doesn't see our hurts, see our needs, our sorrow, and we look to other things or even other people or spiritual leaders to shield us from the hurt or escape the pain. Some of us are good enablers too, especially for those closest to us.
We need to point each other to the cross, the true power source, Jesus Christ, where real healing and real freedom take place, where the flow of the Savior's blood cleanses us and heals us once and for all. It's a done deal. Sometimes you need to just stretch out your hand. When you are ready for God, God is more than ready for you.
Physical wounds tend to heal faster than emotional wounds. I know, I have both. But all wounds are healed in God's way and in God's timing. He wants to make us whole, but he wants us to participate.
Too many times we come to the altar of God and receive, but then we just leave our blessing there. We don't trust him, or maybe we don't trust ourselves enough to stand up when the going gets tough and walk it out with faith or maintain it in faith, but we have the protection of his grace and his love. That's what seals the deal. We can wear our hurt like a badge of courage and build up walls.
We put up things like walls thinking we are protecting ourselves, but by putting up walls and not dealing with our stuff, we're just hiding. We're keeping secrets. We're isolated and alone. Be free, be determined, have active faith, and receive from him the ultimate power source.
So today, right now, I'm going to pray over everyone listening. Daughter, your faith, your personal trust and confidence in Jesus has healed you. It's a done deal. Go in peace and be free from all your suffering and maintain what you have by faith.
Step fully alive, fully valued, fully visible into your kingdom calling. Amen and amen. This has been Women Infused Radio, connecting women around the globe with purpose and spirit, and we want to connect with you. Get your free gift, Unveiled Voices, six things you need to do to define your value, voice, and vision.
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