Despair to hope by the way of love Luke 7:36-50

My life hasn't been easy. My father was cruel to me after my mother died & I grew up in a household of men, with four brothers. Each of them learned well from my father to be cruel & life wasn't easy. I was pledged to be married to a friend of my fathers who seemed to be honourable, but used me, casting me aside when he had finished using me & broke off our wedding. My father disowned me, assuming there was something in me that had caused his friend to discard me & I did the only thing I could do, I fell into a life of prostitution. After all, I reasoned, men had used me all my life & been cruel to me, I may as well be paid for it.

So my life went on, from year to year, a relentless, grey sameness, on & on. It had become an existence not a life I led & I thought nothing could or would ever change, that I deserved no less & certainly no more.

I hadn't bargained for meeting Jesus.

I'd been on the periphery of various crowds following him when I had first seen Him. It wasn't just that I had seen Him, but that, despite my being where I always tried to be, in the background, He had seen me. That was what was the undoing of me.

Once He'd seen me, He'd caught my eyes & there was something in His look, something different to every other man I had ever seen, or who had ever looked at me. Men normally look at me like I am a piece of meat with which they satiate their appetite, but they never see me. He'd looked at me & in that one look had seen into my very soul, yet though He had seen everything I am, there wasn't condemnation or loathing, but acceptance & what I knew despite never having experienced it, there was love.

I think it was that which made me go back again & again, each time I knew He was going to be in town. He had become a magnificent obsession for me from that one look. There had been other looks since that first one, each looking deeper & deeper into the fabric of who I really am, ignoring what others think of me. Each look drew me more & more. The compassion, sorrow, love & acceptance in His gaze drew me irresistibly like a moth to a flame.

Then I heard He was going to dinner at Simon's house. I knew Simon & Simon knew me, so did his servants, so I was able to get through the crowds there. I took my jar of perfume with me, for I knew what it was I wanted to do. He was reclining at the table & much talking was going on - Jesus spoke as He always did, answering their questions, asking them questions they couldn't answer.
As I sat at His feet the tears began. I unstopped the bottle of perfume to pour over His feet & as I did so it was like the uncorking of all of my life, all the cruelty, the using & abusing poured out of me in tears as I poured that perfume over His feet. I remember well the moment I realised that although I had brought the perfume, I had forgotten a towel to wipe it away, so did the only thing I could do & let down my hair & wiped His feet with my hair & as I did so, I began to kiss His feet to pour out some of the love & gratitude I felt towards Him.

It was strange because although I knew they were all beginning to look at me & be aware of what it was I was doing, especially as I let down my hair, nevertheless, I knew that where I was, in this place, at His feet was the safest place I had ever been in my life & I had no worries. There were so many tears, on & on through the years of heartbreak, I'd never allowed myself to cry before.

Suddenly I became aware of Simon mumbling to himself, that wasn't unusual, but I also became aware that Jesus was speaking to him.
He began to tell Simon one of His stories, His parables. I stopped crying to listen to Him talk of debts & of debtors, of one man who owed much money & of another who owed little, though neither could pay. When they were absolved from their debt Jesus asked, which would love more. Simon answered that it was the one who had been forgiven more, but you could tell he didn't know what Jesus was talking about & was irritated.

Then, Jesus turned to me, looking straight at me & told Simon that I had been washing His feet, kissing His feet, anointing His feet. Jesus knew the perfume I had used was costly, but He knew too that what I had done in full view of Simon & of all those people was just as costly.

Time stood still & my heart stopped as He looked straight into me & told me that my sins were forgiven because of the great love I had shown. My sins, all of them, every seedy, filthy, perverted sin, He knew them all yet they were forgiven by Him in that one moment. That one moment that changed the course of my life & set me free from my existence to live life & turned all my despair into hope.



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The widow of Nain's iWitness account

I am very proud of my son, I guess every mother is really. He's a good boy & he cares for me. He's all I've got since my husband died & I am grateful to God, so grateful.

I remember the day so well when he came home from his work with a fever. We both thought nothing of it & I did what every mother does & gave him broth to soothe his throat & made him comfortable, both of us thinking that the morning would see him improved.
I didn't sleep well that night, maybe in my heart there was something that made me realise this was more than a simple fever, I don't know. I do know that when I woke the next morning to begin preparing his breakfast, there was no sign of him readying himself for the day & when I went into him, he was worse, he was delirious. 

That day and the morning of the next day passed in a blur, people coming & going as I had sent word of how ill he was & they came to offer me help & support. Along with others in our family & our neighbours I prayed much that day, pleading with God for him; hadn't He taken my husband, could He not spare me my son? 

It was the afternoon of the second day when he died. The lament from those who were with me began & I was grateful for it. I had tears, but no strength to wail or lament, I was numb. The tears I did shed came from somewhere within me that was beyond that numbness, somewhere I presumably could feel the horror of my aloneness amidst my friends & neighbours.

The time came for them to carry him out & there was quite a crowd. At that same level of my mind that was still capable of feeling and of thought, I dimly wondered why there were so many people. Then He appeared. He stepped forward & touched the bier. We all stopped & I looked up at Him. I knew this had to be Jesus, the teacher people had spoken of, the one who healed.
He told me not to weep & somehow even at His words hope began to fill me, because those few words were spoken & filled with a love & compassion deeper than I had ever felt or experienced before.

I didn't have time to ponder why I felt hope, because the next words He spoke were to my son, my precious boy. He spoke directly to him, just as though He were waking him in the morning & telling him to rise up for a new day, He told him to rise up from death. My son sat up on his own funeral bier & spoke to Him, just like that, as though it was nothing & he had in fact been woken from sleep. He knew it was Jesus had brought him back to life, he recognised Him, praised God & thanked Him. Then he jumped down from the bier & Jesus gave him back to me. He really did, in every way give my son back to me. 

How quickly can the despairing numbness of grief turn to joy? As quickly as the man, Jesus from Galilee speaks the words of life "Rise up!" That's how quickly.



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The crumbs for my daughter.

I knew He was coming our way, I'd heard about Him from so many others & I knew this had to be the Messiah the Jews had longed for. I knew that He had healed so many - lame people walking, blind people seeing, deaf hearing & most importantly demons cast out & the people set free. 

That was the thing, that was what I wanted. More than anything in the world that was what I wanted for my daughter, freedom from the demons that possessed her, but He was a Jewish teacher, a Jewish healer, nevertheless, I had to go.  

I didn't care what people thought of me, I just went.....such a crowd were following Him, but I didn't care. Knowing I can make myself heard when I need to I yelled with all the pent up years of frustration & grief 'Oh Lord, Son of David, my darling daughter is dreadfully possessed by a demon, have mercy on her & on me.' 

To begin with I thought He hadn't heard me because of all the rest of the people around me, but then I heard His disciples asking Him to do something to shut me up! Then I was upset - couldn't He see that I actually believed He could heal her. 

He told His disciples that He had only come for the children of Israel, not for the likes of me. 

I had to get to Him, I had to keep pushing, because He needed to see just how desperate I was. I finally was allowed to get in front of Him, at which point I dropped to my knees before Him, worshipping Him as the God-Man Messiah I realised He is, but through my worship the prayer that fills my life spilled over. 

He told me that it wouldn't be right to give a dog like me the food meant for the children. 

Now, I know what I am, I know I am not a child of Israel, I know in many people's eyes I am nothing, so His words did not shock me, but I was angry - even the smallest, weakest pup gets the crumbs that are too small for anyone else, surely I should be allowed to have those crumbs? 

I told Him that & I would have stayed there all day arguing with Him, this was my one chance for my daughter & I'd have given everything I had to see her healed.

As I spoke & as I then waited, His whole demeanour changed & He looked at me, looked straight into my soul & I knew from that one look that there was acceptance. Acceptance for who I was, not for who I wasn't! I knew that He didn't see me as a dog really, He saw the longing of my heart for my daughter, but He also saw that I truly believed He was the Messiah of God. I don't know how I knew all this from one look, but believe me or believe me not, I just did! 

It was at that point He spoke & told me that my faith was great & that it had been done for me as I wished! I had known that He was her only chance, I had known that He had to be who He said He was, or He couldn't have done what He was doing. Is that faith, or simply truth played out in my tenacity? 

Either way, I shall never forget Him because after I had run home, my daughter for the first time was in her right mind - she was completely the child I had glimpsed within her apart from the demon that possessed her. 

I knew it, I knew He had done it, even before I had got home, just as I knew that He had recognised me from that one look, that He had seen who I was & that despite what I am, He valued WHO I am.




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