Do you want to be a well woman?

And Jesus said to the man, “Do you want to be well?” John 5:4   Of course this man, who had been crippled all of the 38 years of his life wanted to be well.  Didn’t he?  But, instead of answering this question with a decisive yes, the man by the pool began by explaining and making excuses for why he had lain there for so many years and still remained crippled. 

Doesn’t that sound like so many of us?  “I want to be healthy, but there are too many temptations, how can I eat carrots when my co-worker brought cookies”; “I want to quit smoking, but I just don’t have the willpower”; I don’t want to get a divorce, but my husband is making my life too difficult.”. 

Not long ago, God asked me this very question.  And it’s no wonder He asked.   I had spent the first 32 years of my life playing the part of the victim.  “Poor, poor, poor me!”  If I could blame those that had victimized me through the years for my faults and problems then maybe I wouldn’t feel like such a failure.  As ugly as it sounds, playing the victim gave me an excuse to fail over and over and over again.  I didn’t want to try, because trying was too hard.  

The day that I finally broke down and admitted that I could not make it alone, I went to God.  When He asked me the question, “Woman, do you want to be well?”, I answered with a resounding, “YES!”.  I was ready to be free.  Free from the victim mentality that I had come to lean on like an enabling crutch and free from my fear of being everything that God created me to be.  

So, are you ready to be a well woman?  You can start by acting like a well woman instead of the woman at the well.  You know, the one who had been married to five men and was living with the sixth that she was not married to.  She went to the well to get water in the middle of the afternoon, the hottest time of the day, when all the other women went in the morning because she was too ashamed and disliked to show her face.  She may have been labeled because of things that had happened in her life, but she retained that label by continuing to believe that was all that she was meant to be. 

Let me tell you, girlfriend; you are so much more than the choices that you’ve made, you are more than the products of your past mistakes, you are a life giving, light bearing child of God.  He made you with a perfect purpose in mind.   Let go of the fear and let God make you well and whole, so that you can fulfill that perfect purpose and bear fruit for the kingdom.    

I am no longer a victim.  I am a victor.  But I could only find that victory in Jesus.  I wish I could say that I always knew that, but I have to be honest with you; I looked everywhere else first.  Only when I hit the bottom of the well and was dying of thirst did I call out His name.  He watched me suffer and I know He cried for me as I sat and cried alone.  He waited for me and the moment that I called His name, He was there.