Perhaps this woman suffered from a crippling form of arthritis.  We can't really know for sure, but Luke says that "a spirit had crippled her."  That description is consistent with the belief in Jesus' time that illnesses were brought on as a punishment from God or as the result of bad behavior that opened a person up to evil spirits.  Imagine what it would have been like to be this woman.  For years, she has been unable to stand up straight, never able to meet anyone in the eye or even to see people's faces.  She can't look out at the world, only at her own feet.  And she would have known that though she seems to have been a part of the community (after all, she was part of the crowd at the synagogue)  I imagine she must have been in great physical pain, but  I suspect the pain was more than physical.

I think I keep coming back to this story from Luke because of the story of a friend of mine who is recovering from a painful and debilitating illness.  My friend, whom I'll call Emma, struggled for many years with a worsening addiction to alcohol.  Now sober seven years, she told me recently that she believed for many years that her disease was all her fault, and that she spent most of her time scared and sad and ashamed.  Another friend of ours, who was part of our conversation and who knew Emma ten years ago when she was still struggling, said, "When I first met Emma, she would never smile or talk.  She kept her eyes down, and her head so far ducked down into her shoulders that I wondered if she had a neck!"  I said that that is hard to believe, and I meant it.  Emma's always smiling and laughing, her head up, her eyes shining.  She's funny and self-deprecating and very good at her work.  She's also a good friend and a great daughter and sister and aunt.  Emma believes that she is being healed, and she believes that that healing comes from God and from her community.

Sadly, not everyone who suffers from an illness gets well.  And with diseases like addiction, many people never recover.  But I believe that God wants the best for us, and that God will be with us in the midst of any kind of suffering or illness, and that God will not leave us.  I also believe that God can heal and restore.  Reconciliation and freedom are possible.  

Prudence Crandall was born in 1803 to a Quaker family, and in keeping with Quaker tradition, her family believed that girls should be educated.  Prudence was taught arithmetic, science, Latin, and other subjects.  During those years in school, she developed a passion for teaching.

In 1831, Prudence Crandall started a girls' school in Canterbury, Connecticut.  The school attracted the daughters of the town's wealthy families.  In 1833, Crandall admitted an African-American girl, a decision that outraged many of the parents of her white pupils.  Though parents demanded that Crandall expel the African-American student, Crandall refused to back down and decided instead to open a school for African-American girls.

Crandall received threats, and many citizens attempted to close down her school.  African-American families from all over the country began to send their daughters to Crandall's school.  In response, the Connecticut legislature passed a law that made it a crime to educate African-American students from out of state.  Crandall ignored the law and was arrested, tried, and jailed.  Though an appeals court reversed her conviction and ordered her release, the harassment and threats grew so serious that Crandall, fearing for her students' safety, closed the school in 1834.

Crandall eventually moved to Kansas.  By 1866, opinion of Crandall's work began to change.  The Connecticut legislature awarded her a pension, and citizens circulated a petition expressing shame and regret over their treatment of Prudence Crandall.  She died in 1890, and today she is recognized as the official State Heroine of Connecticut.

Rev. Jack Bishop, Christine Camper, Alec Dingee, Betty Fraser, Bernice Herrick, Tony Lopes, Lynn McDonald, Rheta McKinley, Elsie Saunders, Eleanor Schott, Bishop Thomas Shaw, Kevin Smith, Ralph Ventola, Stephen Wagner and Charles Weaver.