He Knows Where It HURTS

DARE Woman,

I want to start somewhere honest.

Last week, we talked about confronting the real you — the woman behind the smile, the one carrying things she never asked to carry. We said that growth begins the moment we stop avoiding ourselves.

But here is what I didn’t say — what I want to say now:

Confronting yourself without Jesus at the center of that confrontation is just pain without purpose. It is excavation without healing. It is tearing open the wound and having nothing to close it with.

You can confront everything and still be empty. Unless you bring it to the only One who can actually heal it.

I know this because I have sat in the middle of my own mess, doing all the ‘right’ things — journaling, praying the right words, showing up — while quietly keeping certain rooms in my heart locked. Rooms I told myself weren’t that bad. Rooms I convinced myself God had already dealt with.

He hadn’t. Because I hadn’t let Him in.

There is a particular kind of wound that is hardest to bring to Jesus. Not the obvious ones — those are easier to name, easier to pray about, easier to ask for help with.

I’m talking about the ones we have carried so long they feel like part of us. The ones we have explained away, spiritualized, or simply learned to work around.

•  The wound of feeling fundamentally unseen — even in rooms full of people who love you

•  The wound of a relationship that broke something in you that has never quite healed

•  The wound of a version of yourself you are ashamed of — something you did, something done to you

•  The wound of a prayer you prayed that went unanswered the way you needed

•  The wound of a childhood that left gaps no adult has been able to fill

•  The wound of simply never feeling like enough — no matter how much you produce, serve, or give

These wounds do not announce themselves in prayer meetings. They show up instead as patterns — as the way we shrink in certain rooms, as the relationships we keep choosing, as the way we respond when we feel criticized or overlooked or left out.

They are hidden. But they are not hidden from Him.

I keep coming back to the woman in Luke 8. She had an issue of blood for twelve years. Twelve years of being unclean, untouchable, unseen by religious society. Twelve years of spending everything she had on people who couldn’t fix her. Twelve years of waking up every morning still sick.

And she had heard about Jesus.

She didn’t announce herself. She didn’t make an appointment. She didn’t wait until she was presentable. She pressed through an entire crowd and reached for the hem of His garment — believing that even the edge of who He was would be enough.

She came trembling and fell down before him. And in the presence of all the people, she declared why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.

“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

— Luke 8:48

He called her daughter. Not ‘woman.’ Not ‘you there.’ Not the name of her condition.

Daughter!!!

He stopped in the middle of a crowd, with someone important waiting, with people pressing on all sides — and He made time to see her fully. To let her tell the whole truth. To speak identity over her wound before He sent her forward.

That is who Jesus is. That is what He does.

I want to be careful here, because I think we have sometimes been sold a version of healing that looks like a single moment — a prayer, an altar call, a breakthrough service — after which everything is resolved.

And sometimes, yes, He moves that way. Instantly. Completely. Glory to God.

But for many of us, healing with Jesus looks more like a daily returning. A daily willingness to open the door to the room we closed. A daily choice to bring what is real rather than what is presentable.

✓  It looks like honesty in prayer — not the polished version, but the trembling, unfiltered, ‘I don’t even know how to say this’ version

✓  It looks like letting scripture speak into the specific lie — not generally, but the one that runs on repeat in your particular mind

✓  It looks like allowing trusted community to see what you’ve been managing alone

✓  It looks like grief — actually grieving what was lost, broken, or never given to you

✓  It looks like forgiveness — not because they deserved it, but because the wound deserves to close

✓  It looks like receiving — letting His love land, not deflecting it because you don’t feel worthy of it

None of this is weakness. Every single one of those steps requires more courage than pretending does.

Jesus did not come for the people who had it together. He said so Himself.He Came Specifically for YOU!!!

“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.”

— Isaiah 61:1

Brokenhearted! Captive!! In darkness!!!

These are not metaphors for mild discomfort. These are words for the places inside us that feel beyond repair. The places we hide. The places we have stopped believing could ever be different.

And He came. Specifically. For those places.

Not after you fix them. Not once you have demonstrated enough faith or consistency or spiritual maturity. He came for you in them — in the middle of them — the way He stopped in that crowd for a woman who had been invisible for twelve years.

He is not waiting for you to be healed before He draws near. He draws near to heal.

I want to give you something this week. Not advice. Not a to-do list. Not five steps.

Permission. Permission to Let It Be Undone

Permission to stop holding the wound together with willpower and performance.

Permission to stop being strong in the way that has actually kept you stuck.

Permission to bring the real thing — the unbeautiful, complicated, tender, still-bleeding thing — to the feet of the One who already knows it is there.

You do not have to have language for all of it. You do not have to understand it before you bring it. You do not have to be ready. You just have to reach.

Like she did. Through the crowd. Trembling. Hoping the hem would be enough.

It was enough. It still is.

Reflection Questions for This Week

Bring these into your quiet time. Let them be slow questions, not quick ones.

1. What is the wound I have been managing rather than bringing to Jesus?

2. Is there a room in my heart I have kept locked, even from God? What is behind that door?

3. What would it look like for me to reach — even trembling, even uncertain — for the hem of His garment this week?

4. What lie has this wound taught me to believe about myself? What does scripture say instead?

5. What would change in my life if I actually believed I was fully seen, fully known, and still deeply called ‘daughter’?

Part One asked you to confront the real you.

Part Two is an invitation to bring her to Jesus.

Not the version you wish you were. Not the version you are working toward.

The version you are right now. Wound and all.

He is gentle with what is broken. He always has been.

With love and with you in this — DARE-ing journey,
Nkonye Odozi