Hope is what keeps us going, but sometimes it's hard to hope. I'm Ruth Gervat, and I invite you to join me on my hope-filled journey, because I believe the best lies ahead.
What if there were prayer screeners in Heaven – maybe a panel of judges that rate your prayers from zero to ten before they are sent on to the Throne Room? How would you do? No doubt you have heard some eloquent, beautifully spoken prayers at churches, ceremonies, and formal events. Would you give them a “10”? Would Heaven?
What if you were at the end of your rope, or sick, or depressed, utterly exhausted and could hardly put three words together, would God listen to you?
One day such a woman harassed Jesus. Matthew calls her a Canaanite woman; Mark calls her a Syrophoenician woman; I call her a mom – a mom with an incurably sick little daughter. She hears Jesus is in town and she has no time to compose a winning plea for his help. She rushes to the house where Jesus is trying to remain unseen and starts yelling for Jesus.
“Have mercy on me, Lord,” she cries, “My daughter is horribly demon-possesed.”
Falling on the floor at his feet she begs, “Lord, help me!”
But there seems to be a problem. This mom is a Gentile and Jesus was sent to the children of Israel. He tells her it wouldn’t be right to take the bread from the children and give it to the pets. The children have to eat first.
Whenever you are tempted to give up praying, remember this woman!
“But,” she says.
“But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
What a crumby prayer! She admits she will settle for whatever bread will fall to the floor. Well, after all she is already down on the floor.
But much more than that, she knows who is making the bread.
When she started yelling for Jesus she called him “Son of David.” That’s the title of the heir to the royal throne, the Messiah, God’s anointed. These are no ordinary crumbs.
“Woman,” Jesus told her, “your faith is great! You may go. The demon has left your daughter.”
What bread do you need today?
In the prayer Jesus taught, we pray, “give us today our daily bread.”
We don’t need eloquence to ask God for what we need – we need confidence in who He is.
By all means, when you can, compose beautiful songs and prayers of praise to God. But when you can’t find words, that’s okay.
She was sick. Really sick. She had been bleeding for 12 years.
Luke, the physician who recorded her story, doesn’t tell us the source of her problem, but we can guess it was from “the way of women.” She had no modern way to deal with this, just rags. Rags she had to wash and boil and wash again.
And she was tired. Any unchecked loss of blood leads to anemia. Sick, anemic and tired.
And she was poor. She used to have money, but she had spent it all going from doctor to doctor looking for help. But no one helped her. Sometimes the treatments made her worse. Sick, tired, poor.
And she was lonely. In her day there were laws – good laws to help stop the spread of disease- about not touching certain things. These rules labeled her “unclean,” and anyone who touched her became unclean. No one wanted to touch her. She lived without hugs, kisses, hand-holding and arms around her shoulder, and, of course, no intimacy with a husband. Her inability to have children brought her shame. If she did stay with family they would be sure not to touch her or anything she touched. Alone, sick, tired, poor.
Without hope.
Without hope until one day someone came to her village with stories about a rabbi who was a healer. Stories were carried by mouth from village to village. Slowly they began to arrive in her village. There was a rabbi named Jesus who was teaching in a new way, and he was doing astonishing things. Stories about useless legs walking, blind eyes seeing, leprosy leaving. Stories that amazed and puzzled everyone. Stories that started to raise the dead hope in her heart.
“Maybe,” she thought, “Maybe Jesus will heal me. If he comes here I will go ask him. Surely if he can cure blindness and leprosy he can cure me.”
But how would she go? Everyone in the village knew she was unclean They would see her coming. They would back away. They would yell at her and tell her to go home.
“Go home,” they would say. “Jesus is a holy man. If you touch him you will make him unclean! Go away. He is not here for you.”
Not here for her? She sighed to think about what might happen is she tried to get close to Jesus. But in the courage born of desperation, she decided she would do it.
“The messenger whom you long for is certainly coming.” She had heard that prophesy many times. “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”
Healing! She longed for healing. She would go and touch the wings of his shawl and be healed. She knew it. She planned for it. And then the day came.
One afternoon she heard children shouting in the street, “Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming!” Her neighbors hurried out of their homes to see Jesus. But she couldn’t join them. No, she could not go with the crowd because they would tell her to go home.
Instead she grabbed her shawl, pulled it over her head, covering her face so no one would know her. Then, looking down, she walked quickly in the direction of the noisy crowd. No one noticed or stopped her; they were too busy trying to get a look at Jesus.
When she saw him coming she ducked her head and, trembling with excitement, pushed through the tightly packed crowd until she was almost near Jesus. Then bending down even more she watched his feet come closer and closer. Her heart raced.
“Now!” she thought and reached out her hand to touch the wing of his shawl. Immediately she felt something. She felt well! But as she turned to run home and share her good news, Jesus suddenly stopped and yelled, “Who touched me?”
Panic poured over her. She started to tremble and shake as she realized he knew what she had done. Was he mad at her? She had broken the law by touching Jesus. Now that Jesus knew, would he take her healing away? She froze and waited. Her eyes welling with tears.
“Oh, come on, Jesus,” his friends said, “Look at this crowd. Everyone is touching you. Why do you want to know who touched you?”
Everyone stopped as Jesus continued to look from face to face. “Someone touched me,” he said. “I know that power has gone out from me.” Finally his eyes met hers.
Now her trembling increased to the point she could barely walk, but somehow, as the crowd parted she made her way to him and fell to the ground.
“I had to touch you,” she told Jesus. “I’ve been so sick for so long. I just had to touch you. I knew if I touched you I would be healed, and I am healed!”
Not daring to look up she stared at the hem of his robe and waited.
“Daughter,” he said to her in the kindest voice she had ever heard.
“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
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In Matthew 6 Jesus tells us to pray “in secret.” Of necessity the woman in our story had to approach Jesus secretly. In the commotion of a moving crowd she made a hidden place. Many persons in that crowd touched Jesus, but his power only went out to her.
You may have read books and articles on how to have a great Quiet Time with God. Their advice can be very helpful. But let’s not focus on how-tos and miss our goal: meeting in secret with God. The most important thing is wanting to be alone with God and making our way through whatever obstacles we have to be with him.
Remember Jesus said, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
I hope you will read this woman’s story as Luke wrote it in chapter 8 of his Gospel, starting at verse 43.
“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”
Hope Walking 