The Miracle in the Stretch: When God Asks You to Move First

Motherhood has a way of stretching us in every direction.
 Schedules. Expectations. Laundry piles. Spiritual pressure.

And sometimes… it makes us feel like we’re shrinking instead of growing.

In Luke 6, Jesus sees a man with a shriveled hand and tells him something surprising:

“Stretch out your hand.”

The miracle didn’t happen before the movement.
 It happened in the stretching.

✨ I also created a 5-Day “Stretch Out Your Hand” Family Challenge to help you practice this with your kids.

Comment ROOTED on my Instagram and I’ll send it to you.

🎧 Listen to the episode and share with a mom who might be feeling stretched this week.

Transcript

Welcome And Why We’re Here

SPEAKER_00 0:06

This is Jenna Marie Masters with the Real Moms Real Faith Podcast. I am so glad you're here so you can be encouraged to trust God with all the things one day at a time. Hey, welcome back to the Real Moms Real Faith

Feeling Stretched In Everyday Life

SPEAKER_00 0:19

podcast. This week, I have a question for you. Have you ever felt stretched? This season I have felt very stretched lately. I feel like my schedules are pulling me in a ton of different directions. I feel like the needs of my family are stretching me. I feel like the expectations I've put on myself are stretching me. I feel like when I go to the grocery store and I get back home and I forget five ingredients, I feel stretched in my ability just to feed my family in a good way. I look around at the house and I see that I'm letting things get really messy. And I just feel stretched in my ability to even keep a good home. I feel stretched in my ability to get this podcast up and running. And I hate to admit it, but when I feel stretched, there's a part of me that feels a little bit embarrassed. Like I'm supposed to be doing better than this. I am an adult woman who loves the Lord, who will equip me to do all the things. And I just feel embarrassed that I'm not quite making the cut as a mom and as a wife and as someone in ministry. And I know every mom here listening at times feels like they're supposed to have it all together, especially when we look at social media or we talk to other moms who do seem to have it all together. We just start to feel like we're being stretched. But it also feels like we're shrinking a bit too. Our confidence and self-worth and who God made us starts to shrink. And this is where the enemy comes and gets us.

The Withered Hand In Luke 6

SPEAKER_00 1:35

But I can't stop thinking about this story in the Gospel of Luke 6, 6 through 11. Jesus walks into a synagogue on the Sabbath, and there's a man whose right hand is all shriveled up. And the Greek word here for shriveled means dry, withered, and deprived of life. Anyone feel that? But here's the thing, Jesus sees him. And instead of Jesus quietly healing him in a corner, which he could have done, Jesus calls him forward. He says, get up and stand in front of everyone. Can you imagine? This man must have been embarrassed, right? All eyes on you, your weaknesses exposed. The very thing he's trying to hide is now center stage. And then Jesus says something wild. He says, Stretch out your hand. And the scripture says, He did so, and his hand was completely restored. The miracle came in the stretching.

The Miracle In The Stretching

SPEAKER_00 2:27

I think back on my faith walk, and every time God has asked me to step forward and be obedient to be stretched out is when the biggest miracles in my life have ever happened. And when I say big, they may not be big to you or be big to what the world sees from the outside, but big to me, because the big things are really the littlest things, the everyday things, the miracles when he helps me love someone who's hard to love. The miracle of feeling peace when everything around me feels like it's falling down. The miracle of being strong in my spirit when my body feels so tired. These are the miracles of motherhood that I see in my life every time I say, God, I'm gonna be obedient. I'm gonna let myself feel a little uncomfortable here. I'm gonna give you the things that I'm struggling with. I'm gonna give you all my dried up places and let you do your work. And he is so faithful

Vulnerability And Identity Restored

SPEAKER_00 3:12

to do it. I've shared this before, but I remember a couple years back standing out in front of a room full of middle school girls, and I had been asked to speak to them about identity in Christ. But one week earlier, the Holy Spirit had gently told me that I needed to reset my identity. There were some areas in my life where I was totally thriving, but not here. I was just struggling with my identity, struggling in my confidence as a child of God. My identity felt all shriveled up, withered, and dry. And I just wanted to hide it. I wanted to walk onto that stage with my strong head forward instead, polished and confident and spiritual. But instead, I stood up there and I had to tell 13-year-old girls that I was 40-something and still wrestling with my identity in Christ. That was a stretching for me. And I'm not gonna lie, I felt super vulnerable, I felt exposed, and it was very humbling. And it makes me think back about this man in the synagogue. I mean, did that hurt him when he had to stretch up his dry hand? I bet it did. Was his arm shaking? Did he feel embarrassed? Did he hesitate? Because stretching exposes the things

Obedience Before Breakthrough

SPEAKER_00 4:16

that we'd rather keep hidden. A lot of times in our lives, we want miracles, but we don't always trust the movement that requires the miracle to happen. Sometimes we ask God to fix our marriage, but we won't initiate the hard conversation. We ask him to grow our faith, but we won't open the Bible consistently. We ask him to heal our identity, but we won't confess that we're actually believing lies. Here's the thing, so many times I want Jesus to do his part, but I'm not willing to do my part. Think about it. If this man had refused, what if he had said, no, thank you, that's too embarrassing? What if he said, I don't want to try and stretch my hand, I think that's gonna hurt? What if he just wanted Jesus to wave a hand and make it better without him having to move at all? Would he have walked out still shriveled? Our relationship with Jesus is just that: a relationship, a response, obedience, faith in motion. Scripture tells us that faith without works is dead. Prayers can't be answered if they're never prayed, hands can't be healed if they're never stretched. I have to say, when God asked me to stand up and expose my weaknesses to a large group of people,

Questions For Your Shriveled Places

SPEAKER_00 5:16

it hurt. But while I was speaking, I remember feeling a miracle happen in my spirit. As I was speaking, I felt like God was whispering into my heart, you belong to me. You belong to me. And that's who you are. And I felt completely restored. I imagine I felt something like what that man felt when God healed his shriveled up hand. But I had to be stretched first. I had to be uncomfortable for a minute. So here's my question to you this week: where is your shriveled place? Is it your patience, your body image, your calling, your identity beyond motherhood? Maybe it's your marriage, maybe anxiety. Where are you tightly fisting something in your pocket, hoping Jesus will heal it, but not actually showing it to him? Because how many miracles have we missed because we won't step forward? Or how many breakthroughs are waiting on us to just be obedient? Here's the good news.

Teaching Kids About Stretching Faith

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Jesus did not shame that man. He didn't lecture him, he simply invited him to trust, and he's inviting us to trust too. Maybe today your stretching looks like this: confessing something out loud, apologizing first, starting that backyard Bible study, setting a boundary, asking for help, saying yes to something scary, or saying no to something comfortable, because obedience is what invites the healing. So what if the area that feels the driest is actually the place that God wants to bring most life? What if the miracle is waiting on your movement, not perfection, not strength, just trusting and stretching out your hand to see what he can restore? My prayer for everyone listening today is that all the places that you feel dry and withered, the parts you try to hide behind your backs, to have the courage to step forward and the faith to stretch it out for the Lord. Because he wants to restore you. He wants to do a miracle in your life. And you know what? This just isn't about our shiveled places. It's about modeling for our children that we trust Jesus and what this actually looks like. Because our kids are watching how we handle the stretching, right? There's two things I want to give you to take home to your kids this week. And number one is you can teach them that obedience often feels uncomfortable. So if your child doesn't want to forgive a sibling, doesn't want to tell the truth, doesn't want to try again after failing, you can gently say to them, hey, sometimes obedience feels like stretching a muscle that hasn't been used. It might feel hard, but that's where God grows us. You're helping your kids see that discomfort isn't danger. It actually might be growth. And that's true for us too. The second thing to bring home to your kids is this help them identify their shriveled places. As a mom, hopefully, we have some self-awareness and we know where we're feeling dried up and stretched. But for our kids, it might take some leading. So you can make it a visual. You can ask them, hey, what feels hard for you right now? Or is there anything you're embarrassed about? Is there something you don't want anyone to see? Then you can remind them, Jesus already sees it and he's not scared at all. He calls us forward not to shame us, but to heal us. Moms,

Prayer, Challenge, And Ways To Engage

SPEAKER_00 8:01

just for us this week, I just pray that wherever you're feeling dry or shriveled up, that you take the time to show God those areas, step in front of him, open your hands, stretch it out, even though it's uncomfortable, even though it hurts, even though I know it takes time to do so, because I want a miracle for you. I want to believe in miracles. I want to believe in theology in real time that God can heal and restore anything. I've made a five-day stretch at your hand family challenge. If anybody would be interested in this, just comment the word rooted on any of my Instagram posts and an automation will happen for you and you will start getting the devotionals, including this five-day stretch at your hand family challenge. If you thought of a friend during this podcast, go ahead and send it to them. Be that encouraging person in their life. And if you have a minute, if you could hop on to Apple Podcasts and rate and review, it helps other moms find the podcast, and it means so much to me. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful, wonderful week. Don't forget to follow, save and share, and subscribe. You're awesome. Give it up for our mommy! Love it.