Grace Under Pressure

"And Jesus said, 'Who touched Me?' When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, 'Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, "Who touched Me?" But Jesus said, 'Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.'

Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately.

And He said to her, "Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.'" (Luke 8:45-48, NKJV.)

Many know that crushed feeling. I think our Lord must have thought of how often His followers would be "pressed out of measure, above strength,"[1] as one of them said, because of the throng of things, and because power had gone out of them; and so He allowed this lovely story to be told. Thronged, pressed, crushed, tired-for a man is tired when in some special way power has gone forth from him, and as He was man as well as God He must have been tired then-yet He was so peaceful that He could bring peace to the one who was fearing and trembling. The more one ponders such a story, the marc one sees in it, and the more one longs to live that life of victory over circumstances, the life which, though outwardly crowded and crushed, is yet overflowing with peace. May the peace of our dear Lord fill every hour with peace to-day. 

[1] 2 Cor. 1:8

- Amy Carmichael, Edges of His Ways, p. 68