There’s healing in the hem

All the physicians she’d consulted through the years had been of no help.  Desperate, she’d gone to one, then another, and still she bled.

Penniless now, hemorrhaging unchecked, she inched toward her last and final hope.  She could see it there just before her in flashes of white that appeared briefly in the throng.

“If only,” her heart pulsed loud in her ears.  “If only…”  Her breath caught in her throat.  “Oh, if only I can but touch His garment, I shall be whole!”

And then – there He was.  Trembling, she dropped to her knees and with a wild thrill of hope mingled with fear, she reached out and grasped His hem.

I ran across this old, familiar story a few weeks back.  Reading it, I saw her there, quivering in the throng of seekers on that dusty road.  I felt her despair.  Felt her weakness and exhaustion of spirit.  Felt, too, the tiny seed of faith that had driven her to that one remaining hope – the one they called Healer and Master.

I thought that morning, there in my favorite corner spot, of my own “issues of blood,” of how I, too, had bled unchecked for so many years.

Hadn’t I hemorrhaged fear and insecurity?  Hadn’t I bled worry, anxiety, and discontentment?  And hadn’t these “issues of blood” drained my very life and peace,joy and rest?  Oh, yes!  Yes, they had.

So what had been the end of her story, this woman bending low in the dirt, reaching for His hem?  The gospel says that Jesus, that dear Shepherd of the sheep, “felt that power had gone out of Him.”  Turning, He saw her.

“Daughter.”  His voice was gentle, strong.  “Take heart – be comforted, for your faith has made you whole.”

Oh, dear one, you who, too, are hemorrhaging.  You who, too, have an “issue of blood” that nothing and no one has been able to stanch.  For you, He waits.  He sees you, and in the seeing, He knows.

Reach through the crowd (you can do it) and take hold.  Grab on tight and take heart, for your faith shall make you whole.  There is healing, dear friend, in His hem.

Jesus knows me, this I love.