The Bible is an unrivaled resource for those of us desiring more knowledge of God’s everlasting love for us and His plans for our futures. Throughout the Bible, we can read about other women who felt incapable of overcoming life’s big obstacles and found comfort, strength, and courage to keep striving for more than simply coping with yesterday’s traumas.
Mary Magdalene was a woman known in Scripture for suffering mentally, physically, and socially beneath the weight of the dark oppression of her past, until she recognized her need for courage to receive wholeness. Mary’s eyes must also have told a story of sleepless nights, miserable days, deep insecurities, and spiraling, oppressive thoughts.
Can you think of a time when you were sleep-deprived? Loaded down by burdens and concerns, wondering of future days to come while processing life’s present and ever-changing circumstances? In times like these, it’s important to understand mental health encompasses our emotional, physical, social, and spiritual well-being.
The Bible describes Mary Magdalene as a woman who had seven tormenting demons that had taken up residency within her. Her seven demons could probably paint a more detailed picture of her excruciating inner struggles that affected every facet of her being. It’s doubtful her struggles began when she was a grown woman but were years in the making.
The same is true for us. Our biggest struggles often begin as a slow, gradual progression. Little by little, disappointments in life threaten to leave us unable to thrive in our healthiest version. Pressing our hearts and minds into God’s Word daily requires courage. So what a gift it is to have access to the stories of the women of the Bible.
Women like Mary Magdalene have so much to teach us. Demonic possession might seem a bit far-fetched and unrelatable if you’ve not read her story, but there’s credibility in the fact that she is mentioned in Scripture thirteen times. Knowing this spurs interest in us investigative-type girls.
As we look more closely into Mary Magdalene’s world, most of us can relate to having seven different kinds of inner struggles throughout our lives. The enemy goes to great lengths to imprison God’s children.
We women carry within us a gamut of emotions, some big and some small by the world’s determination, but all are relative and important in God’s value system. Given the fact that women held little importance in ancient biblical history, Mary Magdalene went about her days feeling hopeless, lifeless. Unnoticed by society. But Jesus noticed Mary and cured her of evil spirits and her infirmities and lovingly invited her into His intimate friend group.
What?
Jesus valued a demon-possessed woman?
Yes!
And the Bible reminds us that we are valued friends of God too:
You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:14–15
Mary Magdalene is living proof that Jesus loves every one of us, just as we are. But He loves each of us too much to leave us the way we are. He notices us during the darkest of our days. He sees beyond our faults and failures to our deepest need and willingly absorbs all we can’t be into all that He is.
There’s a world of truth in the old adage, “We become who we hang out with.”
Being welcomed by the Savior of the world into His inner circle was an honor Mary would not have taken for granted. And we can celebrate the joy of knowing the same invitation of love and friendship with Jesus is extended to us.
After three years of following Jesus, Mary Magdalene lived a life that was poured out in service to the gospel. The transformative love Mary experienced changed her from the inside out. Her physical countenance was radiant with the joy of knowing how to live life to the fullest. Mary Magdalene could not do enough for Jesus, who had loved her with the purest and most powerful kind of love she’d ever been exposed to.
Mary Magdalene—a woman whose mind was once scrambled and miserable with behaviors seeming insane and erratic—was entrusted by God to be the first witness to the resurrection.
Mary must have stood stunned to find the tomb empty as the story is recounted in John 20. How could she ever forget the raw transparency of crying near the tomb where Jesus’ dead body had been placed but was missing. Mistaking Jesus as a gardener, Mary cried, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Who better to have gone to the tomb than she who had been entombed in darkness? Who better to have discovered the tomb emptied than Mary, who had been emptied of death?
Once deranged, Mary Magdalene’s life had been rearranged.
How powerful it is to be reminded that Jesus appeared not to a popular Instagram influencer with massive numbers of followers or to a number-one bestselling author. I’m afraid, if we’re honest with ourselves, we might have chosen someone more influential to discover the empty tomb and run with the message that Jesus was no longer dead but alive.
We can humble ourselves knowing Jesus isn’t impressed with fame. He appeared not to kings or rulers and not to his male disciples, but to a woman whose love and gratitude held her near to the cross and led her to discover new life in living flesh and blood.
Lessons Mary Magdalene Can Teach Us:
- Mary’s life reveals how there is no human frailty too great for Jesus to transform.
- Mary teaches us to courageously come to Jesus with our bondages.
- Mary’s courage helps us understand the importance of choosing the right friends for our journey of life. Like-minded friends who are Jesus followers. Friends who pray for and support each other.
- Mary’s broken condition actually positioned her as a credible candidate to follow Jesus.
- Mary Magdalene teaches us how to support our friends who have gifts and God-assignments as she did her own friends, the disciples.
- Mary teaches us how to multiply the gospel by uninhibitedly sharing that Jesus is alive.
- Mary teaches us how there’s no competition in using our gifts in service to the Lord. We can multiply the gospel more effectively by supporting others while leading and operating courageously in our own lanes.
- Mary Magdalene helps us understand how Jesus has a heart for brokenness, and in His eyes, brokenness can be our most powerful credential.
- Mary’s example reveals how to courageously embrace a future we don’t fully understand but desperately need.
- Mary sets the standard for moving forward, beyond the darkness, to the light and love of Jesus rather than becoming stuck in dead emotions.
- Mary helps us see that no matter how unnoticed, disqualified, or mischaracterized by the labels of others, we are a friend of God.
- Mary helps us understand how the history we each carry within us can either paralyze or propel us toward wholeness.
- Mary’s story encourages us to trust that our wholeness and well-being are a process Jesus deeply cares about.
- Mary’s life inspires us that we, too, are God’s beloved daughters and have been given access to the kingdom of God through Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
- Mary’s life, having been raised from death to new life, portrays the gospel message in a way few other Bible characters did.
- Mary Magdalene was the model for the John 3:16 promise. She believed that Jesus was the Son of God and stepped out of a perishing life to embrace her new, everlasting life, taking on the mind Christ.
“For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:16
Pray with me:
Father, teach me to understand Your will. I confess any known or unknown sin in my life that creates dead thinking or actions displeasing to You. Help me to embrace the eternal life offered through Jesus and move away from anything or anyone distracting from the better life You long to gift me. I lay down any thoughts that go against the sound mind Christ offers me. Please be the guiding force in decisions necessary for a blessed future. Thank you for allowing me into your inner circle as Your friend and treasured daughter of the King. Amen.
For more of Mary’s story, read the following verses:
- Matthew 27:56, 61; 28:1
- Mark 15:40, 47; 16:1–11
- Luke 8:2; 24:10
- John 19:25; 20:1–18
LaTan Roland Murphy is a lover of people and strong coffee. She is a sought-after speaker and award-winning writer who finds encouraging others her passion and purpose. Speaking with candid humility and raw honesty, LaTan draws from her own real-life mistakes and failures, inspiring audiences with hilarious personal stories. She and her husband, Joe, recently celebrated thirty-eight years of marriage. They will be the first to tell you they are still growing up together. She and Joe have three adult children: two sons and a daughter. They are blessed to have a loving son-in-law and daughter-in-law who feel more like biological children. In her spare time LaTan enjoys spending time with her three grandchildren, who totally captivate her heart. Author of: Courageous Women of the Bible.