SHE'S A BIT OF A MYSTERY, THIS WOMAN. I can't help wondering about her. All we know is that she'd been suffering for 18 years with a severe physical disability that made it impossible for her to stand up straight or even look up. And that she was present in a synagogue where Jesus happened to be teaching one Sabbath day. Luke 13:10—13 .
I've thought a lot about this woman. How difficult it must have been for her to get to the synagogue. The Bible doesn't say why she went. There's no indication she knew Jesus would be there that day. No reason to believe that she'd sought him out, as many did, for healing. And yet, she was there. Jesus called her to him, and she went. And as he touched her, she was healed.
This story always gets me thinking about the link between churchgoing and well-being—physical, as well as mental and moral. It's not that I think church is some magical place or that healing is dependent on a person's location. Surely someone stranded on a desert island can be healed. God is everywhere, and can always be relied upon to lift anyone out of any difficulty—wherever they are.
And yet, at the same time, studies have shown a correlation between regular church attendance and a person's health and happiness. You have to wonder why.
To me, it's natural that there would be a connection between Church and healing. After all, the purpose of Church is to share the good news of one infinite, omnipotent God, whose care for His creation can always be counted on. To inspire trust in His universal, unceasing, unconditional love. And the purpose of most committed churchgoers is to know God better—to trust and experience Him more in their lives.
It doesn't seem surprising, then, that right in the place where the love and might of God is sought and taught, this same power would be received—welcomed into consciousness and understood. So tangibly felt as to have a lasting impact on one's life. Often before one even leaves the premises.
It also makes sense that this healing influence would affect anyone who came to church. Even if a person only came in to get out of the cold—even if that person were sinful, sorrowful, and sick when plunking down in the pew—it shouldn't be surprising that he or she went home joyful, well, and regenerated. As God's promise in the Bible says, "My word ... shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." Isa 55:11. It seems natural that God's purpose for His word would be healing.
I've seen this healing effect of Church in many ways in my own life. Perhaps the most dramatic involved my husband, who began to attend our local branch Church of Christ, Scientist, with me and our two young children when I returned to churchgoing. He was there, he told me more than once, only because he believed that "the family that prays together stays together." He felt there was too much emphasis on healing at my church. (Doctors are for sickness, he explained. Church is for becoming a better person.) But still, he was there. And every Sunday I thanked him for coming with us. Deep down, I knew that the God we both knew—a God who's all Love—speaks to each of us right where we are. And that we can't ever miss His message.
It doesn't seem surprising that right in the place where the love and might of God is sought and taught, this same power would be welcomed into consciousness and understood.
Then, my husband became quite ill. He went to a doctor, who told him he had the worst thyroid condition he'd seen in his 15 years of medicine. Said he would have to take thyroid medication for the rest of his life. After extensive experimentation to get the dosage "just right," my husband continued the prescription regimen for nearly two years.
But one Sunday in church, while the whole congregation was praying the Lord's Prayer together, the last line spoke to him with great authority: "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever." Matt. 6:13.
He continued to ponder that idea, and a few minutes later, another passage—this one from the weekly Bible Lesson Found in the Christian Science Quarterly.—emphasized the same idea, and had the same impact on my husband: "Either there is no omnipotence, or omnipotence is the only power." Science and Health, p. 249.
That night, while packing for a five-day business trip, my husband reached for his newly filled prescription and thought: "How ridiculous to think that these tiny pills have any power if God is omnipotent!" So compelling was that idea that he didn't pack the pills. While he was away, he called home each night. And each night he'd tell me, "I feel fine." He never took another pill, nor did he need to. Not one of the former symptoms returned. Later, that same doctor acknowledged that the thyroid condition was gone.
I see a number of similarities between my husband's experience and the healing of that dear woman in the Bible:
• As far as I know, neither my husband nor the woman expected healing when they went to worship. But both were there. We don't know why the woman made the effort. For my husband's part, he said, "To give God one hour a week is the least I can do." He did love God, and served Him in honesty and goodness.
• Both my husband and the woman were healed after hearing the teachings of Christ Jesus—she from the Master's own lips; my husband from the Scriptures, from the Lord's Prayer.
• Both felt they "could in no wise lift up" Luke 13:11. themselves. By the same token, neither could they in any way resist the Christ-power that could lift them up.
• And both were lifted up, mentally and physically. Both were healed—having felt the power of the Word tangibly, meaningfully.
• Both the woman in the Bible and my husband knew it was God who had healed them, and both acknowledged it. How glad they must both have been that they were in church!
We don't know anything about what happened to the woman in the Bible after that Sabbath in the synagogue, but it's hard to believe this experience didn't have a lasting impact on her life. As for my husband, his healing strengthened his commitment to God. He'd experienced firsthand the purpose of Church. And it affected every detail of his life.
Now every time I walk into a church, I thank God for this connecting place—a place totally devoted to our connection, or oneness, with God and our fellow man. It's a supportive place, where everyone's God-link is so magnified—taught, preached, heard, seen, felt—that I can't leave without wanting to live it more. I feel a sense of belonging, or spiritual fellowship, because everyone there is appreciating each others' spiritual seeking and finding. I feel the communicator, communication, communicating, and community to be all one.
No, church isn't a magic place. But it is a special one. And this link between being there and being well—there's something to that.
