Daughter, your faith has healed you.
Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.
Mark 5:34

Mark 5:25-34 is a story about a sick woman bereft of connections to other people. According to the law, a woman who suffered from a continual discharge of blood, was unclean (Lev. 15:25-30). Any object she touched was unclean. Anyone she touched was unclean. She has spent all her money on physicians trying to find a cure. She is a woman alone and lonely, hopeless and helpless. She is desperate.

This desperate woman hears stories about a man who heals people. If she ventures out to find this man, she will have to be in a crowd – something she is forbidden to do. Everyone who touches her in that crowd will become ceremonially unclean, but the stories about Jesus are compelling. This man comes from God. He can heal. She decides to venture out. She will touch his clothing secretly. No one will know. She will just press through the crowd and touch his garment. That will be enough. She is full of fear, but the hope of healing drives her to try one more time. She presses into the crowd and touches just a small piece of Jesus' clothing. The woman realizes that she is healed, but this Jesus is demanding to know who touched him. She is found out. She falls trembling at his feet. She tells him the whole truth.

At different points in our lives, we all feel as desperate as this woman. We feel alone, lonely, helpless and hopeless. That is when we, like this woman, must kneel and confess to Jesus the whole truth about ourselves. His reply to us is as kind as his answer was to this frightened woman, “Daughter (Son), your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” We are restored to a life with God and others. What a glorious gift.

In Jesus' name I pray for all of you who announce the good news of Jesus, that He will bless you, those you love, and those you touch with this same healing message.

Love's prayers,

Dottie