When it feels like all you’re doing is fighting—for health, happiness, or hope

Sometimes, we’re sick. We’re physically sick, emotionally sick, or plain sick and tired of the same issues, the same drama, or the same discouragement.

There might be a battle raging in your body.

Dark thoughts might be advancing on the territory of your mind.

You may be meandering in a fog—lost to what this world has to offer, lost to what this life has to offer, lost to what you’re supposed to do next.

Somewhere, there is a woman wondering—a woman desperate for a touch of something—anything.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the “sick woman” discussed in Mark 5 of the Bible, it’s that sometimes our last resort is to reach out. But, when we reach—when we step boldly forward, even in our fear and shame—we experience the healing we’ve been searching for, for years.

So, here’s what I imagine the sick woman might tell all of us women:

The Sick Woman
by Holly Mthethwa

“A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years….” Mark 5: 24-25

I followed the crowd as they pressed around Him.
My presence was shunned.
Touch me, accidentally bump me, and you become ceremonially unclean.

Unclean, that’s what I was.
Unclean, that’s what I made people.
Unclean, that’s what I’d been for 12 years.

I saw many doctors, I grew worse.
I spent all I had on healing, no cure was found.
The bleeding continued, year after year.

News traveled about Him. I heard of His healings.
I believed myself unworthy to ask, and so, I thought,
“If I just touch His clothes, I’ll be healed.”

I came from behind, so many crowded against Him; He would not know.
I trembled as I reached to touch His cloak.
My hand met its fabric and immediately my bleeding ceased.

The slightest touch and my body was freed.
One act of faith and my suffering gone.
But, He knew.

Power left Him.
He asked who touched Him.
The disciples mocked Him.

He saw the people crowding against Him.
Thousands engulfed Him.
Yet, He asked who touched Him?

He knew.
So many had touched Him, so many had bumped Him.
But, ONE reached for Him.

He looked to and fro, searching.
Knowing what happened, I fell at His feet in fear.
It was me.

I had been suffering.
I needed one touch.
I believed He could heal me.

He looked down, eyes filled with compassion.
He called me daughter.
I hadn’t made Him unclean.

There was no rebuke, I wasn’t in trouble.
I feared public humiliation, yet He wanted public declaration.
“Go in peace and be freed,” was all He said.

Go in peace and be free.

I WAS an unclean woman. Suffering.
Insignificant. Feared by my disease.
I AM a clean woman. Free.

His power WAS enough.
His grace WAS enough.
His freedom WAS enough.

That one demonstration was an act of reconciliation:
A daughter restored to her Father;
A sufferer restored to wholeness;
A hopeless heart restored to hope.

Sometimes, all it takes is reaching. But, not reaching new heights, new levels, new milestones, or new numbers. Sometimes, it just takes reaching out. Reaching for…the One…..or reaching for someone who can point us back to the One.

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Articles by Holly Mthethwa

Holly Mthethwa

Holly Mthethwa is the author of the Christian memoir "Hot Chocolate in June: A True Story of Loss, Love, and Restoration." She hails from the small, Midwestern town of Cozad, Nebraska, but currently resides just outside of Washington, D.C., where she lives an adventure with her husband and daugther. Holly writes regularly about faith, family, and the moments that fish-hook her heart at www.ruggedandredeemed.com.

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