just a touch of his hem

"He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Mark 5:34

 (story below is my own paraphrase)

   As she walked through the crowds of people that were surrounding Jesus i can imagine her heart was pounding, her eyes were looking at the ground in fear that anyone would see her.  She does not want anyone to know what is going on, she had spent so many years trying to get better but nothing the doctors did helped.  She was desperate for a healing.  All she wants to do is get close enough to Jesus and if she is able to just touch the hem of his clothes then she knew she would be healed physically.  She got close enough to him, still hidden from his sight, still lost in crowd and she reaches out and her hand barley grazes over the fabric of his hem and in that instant she knew that she was healed. And as she prepared herself to leave in private, the crowd suddenly got still and Jesus spoke to the crowd  (verse 30)  "At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”  I can only imagine the women must have felt her whole body freeze, panic striking her she had just been discovered.  Jesus knew who had touched him and he knew the reason why, he wanted her to speak up to identify herself in spite of her fear.  He looked straight at her  (verse 34" "He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” 

  Jesus wanted her to know that he affirmed her faith, that he knew that she believed that he was more powerful then the issue she had had with blood for the last decade of her life.  She had absolute faith that he could heal her and her faith was so powerful that all it took was  a touch of his hem.  I believe that women was healed in 2 different ways that day.  The first was the physical healing and the second was the emotional healing.  She had been trying to hid in shame for so many years, probably wondering if anyone cared about her and her situation and did the Lord see her and know how much her heart hurt?  In that moment Jesus let her know that indeed he did  see her and he knows who she is that she mattered to him.  In that moment the identity of that women who was known as the women with the issue of blood became known as the women who had faith in the Lord.  She will no longer be known for what she was, but by what she had in spite of it.

  No matter what situations people may be dealing with, mine at the moment is dealing with the grief and heartache of my son dying.  I am making a choice to receive the healing that i need from the Lord.  It is not easy to admit that i am total wreck and that i feel like at times i am barely hanging on.  Every fiber in my being wants to hide from the world and try to get lost in the crowd and if i can get close enough touch the hem of his clothes and receive the healing my heart so desperately needs in private then i will be ok.  But that is not what the Lord wants from me personally.  He wants me to run to him with total abandonment, he has never moved he is the same God as he was before my life crashed around me, he is still good, loving and faithful and i have to go to him and lay it all out and have the faith that he will heal my broken heart and bring restoration to a life that seems shattered at the moment.  I don't want to hide from the Lord, its silly to think we do that, no matter how much we try to hide from him, hide our pain, he is there, he sees it and desires to heal us.  All we have to do is ask.  Its that simple. "He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”