It takes Courage

February 27, 2017

Day 58: Touching The Robe Of Jesus:
"[The woman] had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, 'If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.'  Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed from her terrible condition. Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out of him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, 'Who touched my robe?' His disciples said to him, 'Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, Who touched me?' But he kept on looking around to see who had done it.  Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. And he said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over," —Mark 5:27-34

Anderson asks, "How close do we try to get to Jesus when we feel unclean? Do we press our way through the crowd? Or do we give up, afraid that others will see how sick we are?

I have always loved this story because the woman had such faith in the power of Jesus and that faith was rewarded. To answer Anderson's question of how close I come to Jesus when I feel unclean—well, first of all, I don't like that word "unclean," but I'd say more often than not, I hide for awhile. I try to get myself right on my own, which doesn't really work. I am, at times, afraid to be open and honest with others about where I am at because I don't want them to judge me and think that I will never rise above it, or that I won't change, or that the way I am feeling at that moment somehow is a reflection of my true character and that is all that I am.  It takes courage to admit where you're at, to acknowledge when you've fallen into despair and need someone to help you see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. It takes courage to "press our way through the crowd" and "not give up," even when we are "afraid others will see how sick we are?"

It takes courage.