It was Alice Mason's eighteenth birthday and this year it had fallen on a Lord's Day. She had lingered over her presents, and it was late when she went to her room to get ready for the morning meeting. The clock struck eleven before Alice left her looking glass. She was sorry to be late on her birthday; but when she came in sight of the town clock it was twenty minutes past eleven.
Very quietly she opened the door of the meeting place she attended every Lord's Day, and determined to wait till they were singing before she entered. A scripture was being read. As she waited, the first words she heard were: "Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" Luke 13:1616And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day? (Luke 13:16).
The Holy Spirit sent these words of the Savior straight home to the heart of that young girl standing at the door.
“Whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years," she said to herself. "That is I. I am eighteen today, and I know that I am not the Lord's. If I am not, I must be serving Satan; and if so, I am his slave.”
Little she heard that morning except these words. She saw she had spent all her life—those eighteen years in which God had given her health and comfort and countless other blessings—in forgetfulness of Him. She remembered He had often called her, and she had refused to listen. Yes, she saw it all now; she had been bound by Satan for eighteen years. She was bound still. How could she be "loosed"?
The meeting ended, and Alice returned home. Still those words filled her mind. She went to her room, not now to spend her time at the mirror, but on her knees before God. Earnestly she prayed: "Lord, I am bound; I am all wrong. Oh, show me what to do!”
Even as she prayed, a ray of God's sunshine shone into her soul. "'Ought not this woman to be loosed?'" she said. "Oh, that I might be!”
More and more God's blessed light crept into her dark heart. It showed her that though she was a captive to sin, bound by sin for eighteen years, yet that "One mighty to save" had come "to preach deliverance to the captives, and to set at liberty them that are bound.”
When Jesus was upon earth, He said to that poor woman, "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity." He laid His hands on her and she was made straight and glorified God. How very simple and natural it all was, Alice thought to herself. Why should He not do the same for her, and even more, now that He was in heaven? She determined to trust Him; and in faithfulness to His Word He delivered her from Satan's fetters. She too was "loosed" that very day!