Unbound on a Tuesday Morning

Margaret Chen had not stood up straight in eleven years. A degenerative spinal condition had curved her body forward until she walked staring at the pavement, her world reduced to sidewalk cracks and other people's shoes. She adapted. She learned to cook bent over, to watch television from an angle, to avoid mirrors.

When a new orthopedic surgeon in Portland offered a experimental procedure in 2019, her insurance company denied the claim. The surgery was classified as elective. "You can still perform daily functions," the letter read. Technically true. Margaret could function. She could survive. But she had not lived upright in over a decade.

A patient advocate named David fought the decision for seven months. When the approval finally came through, Margaret wept. After surgery and months of rehabilitation, she stood fully upright in her kitchen on a Tuesday morning and saw the top of her refrigerator for the first time since 2008.

The synagogue leader in Luke 13 had a similar logic to that insurance company — technically, this woman could wait one more day. She had been bent over for eighteen years; what was twenty-four more hours? But Jesus saw what religious rule-keeping could not: a daughter of Abraham living in bondage while the gatekeepers debated paperwork. The Almighty does not operate on our bureaucratic timeline. When He sees someone bound, He moves — Sabbath or not, Tuesday or not — because freedom was never meant to wait for a more convenient season.