In No Wise Lift Up

Luke 13:10-17 tells the story of the healing of a woman that is only found in Luke.  We read, “And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.”  Apparently she couldn’t even lift herself out of bed.  The Savior found her and said to her, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.”  He laid His hands and she was immediately “made straight” and was healed and could move.  I think the story itself is symbolic of the fact that all of us are spiritually like that woman.  Without the Savior, we would not be able to progress at all; we would not be able to rise from spiritual or physical death.  We can “in no wise lift” ourselves out of our sins and weaknesses to return to the presence of God without the saving power of Jesus Christ.  As He told the Nephites, just as Christ was “lifted up on the cross” so too we will be “lifted up” to be brought before God (3 Nephi 27:14).  Like the woman, none of us can lift ourselves up spiritually—we need the Savior’s redemptive power.          

              I think there is also a lesson about patience and waiting on the Lord in this story.  Luke emphasized twice in his narrative that the woman had been this way for eighteen years, surely a terribly long time to be in such a state.  Though surely God could have healed her at any time, she suffered for many years before the Savior made her whole.  Other stories of the miracles of the Savior similarly show His healing of those who had been afflicted for a very long time.  John recounted the story of the healing of a man at the pool of Bethesda “which had an infirmity thirty and eight years,” an enormous amount of time to be so afflicted (John 5:5).  The three synoptic gospels tell the story of a woman which had “an issue of blood twelve years” and had tried, unsuccessfully, all she knew how to be healed by the world (Luke 8:43).  The story in John 5 of the man born who was healed doesn’t tell us how old he was, but he was “of age,” so it appears that he was at least an adult.  Peter and John also healed a “certain man lame from his mother’s womb” who was at the temple, and he was “above forty years old” (John 3:2, 4:22).  For all of these who were healed, surely they and their loved ones had prayed to God and sought His blessing and healing and help for a long time.  And yet, the Lord in His wisdom had let them remain in their difficult state for years and even decades.  Healing came for all of them, but it came according to the Lord’s timing and not their own.  Undoubtedly there is a lesson in these stories for all of us about trust and patience in the Lord’s timetables as we seek physical, mental, and emotional healing through the Savior for us and our loved ones.  The Lord may also let us wait for years before the healing we seek.  As Elder Holland taught, “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.”  We can trust that the Lord will indeed come to lift us up out of our trials difficulties, but it will happen on His timetable, not ours.