When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” Mark 5:27-34 NIV
Although the name of the woman in this story is not named, her story of faith is remarkable and inspires me to never give up. There she was stepping out of the shadows to get closer to Jesus. Being an outcast due to her condition, she took a risk approaching the Lord.
There are times this happens to us too. Sometimes it feels like our circumstances will never change. We feel the pain for years. We worry that things will get worse. The lesson of the story is that there is actually more to explore in our growing relationship with Jesus. We don’t have to get stuck in our situation and missing what God is actually doing and what doors God is opening for us.
There is so much bad news out there. Perhaps we have our own bad news that we struggle with. It can be confusing to us. Yet, God makes himself known. He walks near us through the crowd and makes us see himself as he moves through our struggles. Remember, the woman struggled for 12 years. She had visited many doctors and had spent all she had on all kinds of cures. Instead of getting healed, her condition got worse. Sadly, she was considered unclean according to the laws and traditions of the time. She was sick, broke, and discriminated. Jesus knew all these and he wanted us, readers, to learn from the lesson of the story.
Because of her faith in Jesus, she was able to ignore the pain for a moment and ultimately took the risk of going to Jesus and that changed everything for her.