There’s a story in the Bible of a woman who felt invisible. Her story is found in Luke 8:43-48.

This woman has practically been invisible for the past 12 years. Her life was far from being a life of wellness and blessing, far from being the life she had dreamed for herself. She had some sort of bleeding disorder. Because of that, she was considered “unclean” by Jewish law. In fact, for as long as the bleeding continued and for 7 days after it stopped she was considered unclean and was to be separated from other people. Some versions of the Bible state that she’s spent everything she had on doctors trying to be cured. She’s taking a huge risk this day. She’s been alone for 12 years. Her life has become a life filled with shame, isolation, fatigue. She’s desperate. She goes into the crowd to find Jesus. Jesus is her last hope. She shouldn’t be here, but she has to be.

She wants to touch Jesus but remain unnoticed. She believes with everything in her that she just needs to touch Jesus. That’s all. So she slips through the crowd hoping that no one will see her, no one will see the shame that she has carried for all these years. She slips through and gets close enough to just touch the fringe of the tassel on His shawl. Surely with a crowd this large no one will notice.

She should be good at going unnoticed, she’s been practically invisible for 12 years. But this time is different. Jesus knows. He can tell He’s been touched by her.

Imagine the craziness of the scene. People bumping into each other, stepping on each other, quarters close enough to recognize who hasn’t showered in… perhaps several… days. This is the scene here when Jesus asks of the people around Him, “who touched me?”

She is no longer invisible. Scripture says that in spite of the crowd pressing in on Him, Jesus knows that power has gone out of Him and He wants to know who is the cause. I love the way the New Living Translation says it here… “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.”

And then, the words that really stand out to me:

47Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet.

Jesus doesn’t miss it when we come to Him. This woman “Could Not Go Unnoticed”. Jesus sees her. Really sees her. He has felt the impact of her on His life. He sees her fear and her sickness, her issues, her shame and He also sees all of the beauty in her that He created. He sees her for who she really is and who she was created to be and the gap that existed between the to before she was healed. And He closes that gap.

I wonder, when the last time was I came to Jesus desperately knowing that He alone can heal my issues? How about you?

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