Can you relate to me in this? Sometimes I’m having a sweet season with the Lord, I see the value of coming and depending on him even when I’m not tangibly in need… I’m given the blessing of consitency… but then I have a morning like this: I will reach for my bible, journal and pen, go to my little haven (a.k.a. my big white chair) and sit there looking out my window. Then, I’ll remember I need to start the laundry so it gets finished in time for… then I get a text which reminds me I need to send that email… then I remember I need to take out chicken from the freezer so it will be ready in time for dinner… don’t judge if this is not your struggle 
I think it is a common theme for the believer to come to the Lord as a last resort. Its so common to arrange our lives around things that seem important, around needs that seem most tangible. Even in desperate circumstances, it’s easy to exert every amount of human effort to change a circumstance before it dawns on us to pray… at least I see this pattern in my own life.
I read this story of the woman in the crowd in Mark chapter 5 through new eyes today and felt pressed to post about it. Its worth a read, if you have a quick moment!
“And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” (Mark 5:25-34 ESV)
Can you see yourself in this woman? For years, she has gone to different physicians to cure her disease. When they all seemed to make her well, they actually made her worse. It says “She spent all that she had.”
Something really sweet is happening in a dear friend of mine’s life from high school, whom I haven’t talked to all through college, Sara! We met up at Starbucks and caught up on our lives and our college experiences. To see her courage to be so raw and honest about her life was a huge refreshment. In her own words she said, “I just feel like I’ve tried everything, but nothing is satisfying anymore. I’m 26, and I just can’t keep living my life this way.” It wasn’t long before my eyes welled up with tears after we talked about Jesus for a while, which I’m sure always looks weird to people on the first coffee date But to see someone reaching out in the chaos of their life, someone reaching out for the garment of Jesus, to be healed by him… As I listened to Sara, I knew exactly how she felt. And I know that there is something about that feeling that is TRUE. Her hunger reminds me of my hunger when I felt the same way my junior year of college. She’s already come to church and is joining a small group to have other women in her life!
It makes sense that we run and literally hunt down every other form of refuge because we’ve never known Jesus as a refuge. When we live in a world that promises us lies, that deceives us by making things look true that aren’t… we don’t believe that he could truly be an escape, a green pasture to come and rest in until we cast ourselves upon him. Even as a last resort, he proves faithful!
Anyone else drawn by the way the woman with the disease believes finally after 12 years of trying everything else? Her made up mind that he could heal… “If I just touch his garments, I will be made well.” What gets me about this story is that in her sickly condition (she was constantly bleeding) she runs out into the crowd where people are trampling and swarming Jesus just to see if she might be able to touch even just a sliver of his clothing. I love how her desperation moves her directly past all of the failed physicians, past all of the crowd and directly to the true healer.
And she touched his clothing, and she was immediately healed. But notice he doesn’t just say she is physically healed… its her faith that makes her well. In all of the accounts of Jesus healing people, he seems to have such compassion on their physical state of suffering, yet its not ultimately their suffering that causes him to heal them. Its because they trusted him, they believed in him and acted on that belief by calling out to him… and we read Jesus commend their faith, that their faith healed them… ultimately their souls.
I am learning a lot in this season about a similar pattern in my own heart and life. I am coming out of a lot of years of running to everything else to heal me, but by the grace of God learning to be like this woman! Learning to go directly to the only true healer. Learning to run past everything to go directly to Jesus. I find myself wondering… how long had that woman heard of Jesus before she believed he could really heal? When Jesus says, “Who touched me?” wouldn’t it have been so easy for Jesus to tell her all about the times she ignored him, for him to remind her of her sickness and all of the money she had spent thinking that people or other things could heal her. Wouldn’t it be just like the heart of man to make that woman feel guilty and ashamed?” That’s why I love Jesus. He does not have the heart of man. He has the heart of God. Forgiving, taking pleasure in her as she “fell down before him and told him the whole truth.”… waiting to be her father.
(Huge sigh). This gets me. This messes me up. Instead, he calls her “Daughter!” He says, “Your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed of your disease.”
There is so much evidence for us to believe that “…God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:17)
Because God speaks for himself, I will leave this post at that.