What you think matters. I love the story of the woman whose life had been devastated, not only by disease, but by shame. Her problem was that she could not stop her menstrual bleeding. This problem had been going on for 12 years. Along with the smells, inconvenience, and humiliation, she likely had other side effects. After years of managing the daily demands of life for food, water, and shelter as well as her out of the ordinary medical budget, you could imagine that she was depleted mind, body, soul, and finances. She pursued doctor after doctor, each promising a cure but delivering nothing. In fact, some of the remedies suggested by the doctors—the scientific community—made her condition even worse than before. In addition to all this living with excess blood loss makes one exhausted and develops brain fog.

This makes her story more incredible and highlights a detail we are given about her in Mark 5:28—"Because she thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.’” In spite of her exhausted condition, she had a clear enough mind to realize something about God. She used her brain power to put together the reports she had heard about Jesus healing many people  After recognizing the foul-ups from the scientific community she now believed that it was only Jesus who could heal her. She was done with doctors and their shenanigans. 

How could she get to Jesus? Her disease had rendered her unclean according to religious standards. She was not permitted anywhere near a holy man like Jesus if she abided by Jewish religious laws and customs. All the discomfort, all the lost hope, had led her to a place of desperation. She would have to bend the rules a little if she had any chance of receiving healing from Jesus. This would require strategy. Mark 5:28 revealed her mindset, the only way she could receive healing from Jesus was to touch Him in secret. She did not count on how Jesus would respond to her great faith and wise thinking. She was a little taken aback when Jesus asked the crowd “Who touched Me?”  She was surprised for a different reason than the disciples who insisted that there was no way to find who touched Him in such a crowd. She knew who He meant; she had felt her healing instantly as she touched the hem of His garment. His question only drove home her state of health even more. She hesitated to acknowledge her amazing miracle perhaps because she wondered if she had done something wrong. The truth was that Jesus wanted her, the crowd, even the Synagogue leader who would soon hear that His 12-year-old daughter was dead, to hear the story of a woman of great faith. I interpret Jesus’ insistence that her healing be known because of a deep wound she may have been suppressing. How long had she felt unclean, unworthy, unaccepted, unloved, and shamed by her disease? Jesus wanted to look into her eyes and tell her the truth about herself.  He wanted to heal her by allowing her to see herself the way He saw her.  He saw her as a dearly loved daughter of God who was a great example of faith. 

What do you think about your healing? Even when you find great doctors, do you believe that it is the doctor who has healed you? What you think about your healing matters greatly This woman moved from complete devastation, acknowledging that the scientific community was only making her condition worse, to complete hope and trust in Jesus. This is an important lesson for a world in a Pandemic.