Bleeding and Believing

Last night at our Lenten service, we heard the portrayal of the woman in the crowd, also known as the woman with the issue of blood.  She suffered for 12 years, which meant in ancient culture that she was isolated from her family.  She couldn’t be with them, they couldn’t hug her, she couldn’t eat with them or cook their food, and she was considered unclean.  She was totally untouchable and alone for not just a few days each month, but for 12 whole years.  Think about that for a minute.  Can you imagine not only the physical pain of continual bleeding for 12 years, but also the psychological pain of isolation she must have endured? 

While I watched the wonderful portrayal last night that Andrea Ranstrom did of this woman, I was moved to think about the “wound” we all have and carry with us silently that isolates us and even causes us to wonder if God really cares or knows us by name.  Yet, I’ve found that it is in our afflictions and our “wounds” and our suffering that we are oftentimes moved to reach out or to even run to God just as the bleeding woman did.  Sometimes it’s through our “wound” that we find God’s grace and He leads us to a wholeness we may not be expecting. 

Do you remember the wounds that you have carried in your heart and the grace that healed them?  Maybe you have wounds today that need the healing grace of God.  There is a wonderful poem called “Bleeding and Believing” found in a book entitled Seasons of Your Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr. 

Once there was a wound.

It was no ordinary wound.

It was my wound.

We had lived together long.

I yearned to be free of this wound.

I wanted the bleeding to stop.

Yet if the truth be known,

I felt a strange kind of gratitude

for this wound.

It made me

tremendously open to grace,

vulnerable to God's mercy.

A beautiful believing in me

that I have named Faith

kept growing, daring me

to reach for what I could not see.

This wound made me open.

I was ready for grace.

And so one day, I reached.

There I was thick in the crowd,

bleeding and believing,

and I reached.

At first I reached

for what I could see--

the fringe of a garment.

But my reaching didn't stop there

for someone reached back into me.

A grace I couldn't see

flowed through me.

A power I didn't understand

began to fill the depths of me.

Trembling, I was called forth

to claim my wholeness.

The bleeding had left me.

The blessing remained.

And, strange as this may sound,

I have never lost my gratitude

for the wound

that made me so open

to grace."

Have you ever stopped thanking God for His grace that in Jesus reached out to you and into you and healed you and saved you?  Perhaps this week, as we reflect on the faith of the woman in the crowd, we too will reach our hand out to Jesus. 

Natalie Grant’s song “Your Great Name” is a song that reminds us that the lost are saved and the weak find strength through one name – Jesus.

To His Glory!

Pastor Carol