The Woman They Told Her Not to Touch

In February 1813, Elizabeth Fry walked through the iron gates of London's Newgate Prison and into a scene that made seasoned guards flinch. Three hundred women and their children were crammed into two rooms, sleeping on bare stone without bedding, many half-clothed and sick. Respectable society had written them off. Fellow reformers warned Fry to stay away — these women were beyond help, and besides, a proper Quaker mother of eleven had no business in such a place.

Fry went anyway. She sat on the filthy floor and read Scripture aloud. She looked women in the eye who had not been looked at with dignity in years. She organized a school for the children, provided clean clothing, and advocated before Parliament for humane treatment. Critics called her efforts inappropriate and her presence in the prison improper. She answered simply that no rule of decorum should prevent a human being from receiving mercy.

When Jesus laid His hands on a woman bent double for eighteen years in that synagogue, the religious leader sputtered about Sabbath rules. But the Almighty had not come to honor a calendar — He came to honor a daughter. Jesus saw past every regulation to a woman who had been overlooked for nearly two decades and declared her free.

Sometimes the most sacred thing we can do is ignore the voices that say, "Not here, not now, not her," and offer the dignity that God intended all along.