stand up

This week's scripture is a story of a healing. And standing back up, tall.

This image, of Jesus urgently attending to a woman who has been bent over for 18 long years, strikes me as a lot like how I feel.

It's like this: I'll let something weigh me down or keep me captive for a good long time and then, as if all of a sudden, I'll be ready to change. I remember that it doesn't have to be this way. And then the healing is urgent.

I wonder if that's what was going on in this woman, and if Jesus could see that. (This might help explain why he felt it important to break Sabbath law in order to heal. I mean, what's one more day when it's already been eighteen years?)

All of which means I have two songs running through my head, which I cast out there. Maybe one is your kind of music:
Bob Marley's "Get Up Stand Up"
and Sugarland's "Stand Back Up"

Bob got the piece about Jesus' grace being meant for this world. When you realize Jesus wants us to know the kingdom on earth as in heaven, you're suddenly ready to make it happen now.

We sick an tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin n goin to heaven in-a jesus name, lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty God is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you cant fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (what you gonna do? ),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah!)

Sugarland gets the personal courage it takes to say: it doesn't have to be like this, and I want to do what I can to make a change for the better. Then, healing can happen.

I've been beaten up and bruised,
I've been kicked right off my shoes,
Been down on my knees more times than youd believe,
When the darkness tries to get me,
Theres a light that just wont let me,
It might take my pride, and my tears may fill my eyes,
But I'll stand back up...

What are you ready to be set free from, so YOU can stand up, tall?