We cannot hide anything from him. We must come into the light that our deeds may be exposed and reproved (John 3:20), and leave it to him to do what he will with us. We come, assured that he is merciful, or else we could not come at all, but we must do nothing to try to minimise or excuse what we are. If the Physician of Souls does not know our case through and through, then how can he heal us? We come for healing, and so we want the full extent of the disease of sin within us to be known, in spite of the shame involved. That shame is proportional to the character of the one who sees it. Men and women are not greatly troubled to have their evil deeds viewed by those who are like them and who do the same things, but they are much more concerned about having a righteous man know what they have done. But the greatest shame of all comes from having the infinitely holy Son of God view us. His hatred of sin is stronger than all, and he is without sin. He knows what it is to resist temptation, and he knows our sinfulness in giving way to it. He might well condemn us, when all others would be hypocrites to do so, but he does not. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and to have our sin viewed by him ought to terrify us, if it were not that his mercy is even greater. His mercy is seen so clearly in this promise which he had just given, and which she was surely acting on: ‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls’ (Matthew 11:29). So with great trepidation, she knew nothing must hold her back, because there is salvation nowhere else than in him. Perhaps she wondered whether her sin was so awful that she was outside the limits of what he was prepared to forgive, but he was her only hope and she must come to him.