Now there was a woman who had been suffering
from hemorrhages for twelve years.
Is there something in you that is meant to give life that is not well?
Something draining your creative energy?
She had endured much under many physicians…
and she was no better, but rather grew worse.
Sometimes the world around you pretends to have answers,
but they are not life-giving. It’s not your fault.
It’s OK to let go of what the world says.
She had heard about Jesus, and thought,
“If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
You do not need deep understanding or profound faith.
You only need to open yourself and reach out.
She came up behind him and touched his cloak.
The tassels of Jesus’ prayer shawl signify the power of his prayers.
Imagine that God is praying for you.
Where do you touch the presence of God—
not just lovely sunsets, but a sense of God’s concern for you?
Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body
that she was healed of her disease.
Most of our healing is neither immediate nor perceptible.
Where in you might God’s grace be restoring wholeness?
What is being healed that you know… and what might be that you don’t know?
Jesus was immediately aware that power had gone forth from him.
The grace of God is not just an object that you may receive,
but a power, power from God, that flows through you.
Imagine it flowing, even now.
Jesus turned about in the crowd and said,
“Who touched my clothes?”
Despite the needs of 8 billion other people, you matter to God.
God is radically open to you.
His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you;
how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’”
He looked all around to see who had done it.
Sometimes it seems you’re lost in the crowd.
How could God possibly attend to you?
Imagine: God’s attention is infinite.
The woman, knowing what had happened to her,
came in fear and trembling and fell down before him.
How have you been healed?
How has God’s grace made you whole and free?
She told him the whole truth.
Jesus was on his way to an emergency, but stopped to listen,
maybe not just about the healing but the whole twelve years.
Imagine God wants to hear your whole story.
He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well;
go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Wonderful, how he calls her “daughter,”
how he establishes this loving, intimate relationship.
Her faith was not her doctrine, or her belief, but her trust.
It was her reaching out.
Reach out for grace, trusting it will be there.
Breath prayer:
Trusting … I reach for you
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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