For the sick
43 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physician, she could not be healed by anyone. 44 She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased.45 And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!” 46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.” 47 And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. 48 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
-Luke 8:43-48
one
I fall to my knees on my bedroom floor, trembling with weakness from anemia. Tears bathe my face, my back, my chest.
“Please!” I cry out.
I have no idea what time it is, but I know it is late – past midnight.
“Please, God! Please!”
I am yelling at the top of my lungs because of the excruciating pain. Suicidal thoughts bother me. What if I actually slit my wrists or take too many pills? Can I do it? Is hell even real?
“Lord! I can’t take it, anymore! Please…heal me!”
Pain shoots through my back. Spittle collects at the corners of my mouth and pools on the floor.
“Aww!”
The pain is from a stubborn nerve that has since gone haywire from over 23 years of internal bleeding. I try crawling to the phone but I cannot move without nearly passing out.
“Jesus! Sweet Jesus! Please help me!”
All I hear is Daisy walking out of my bedroom as if my racket is just too much for a cat to bear. There is no one else who hears me. My ex-husband is far away and my adult children are even farther. Like my doctor, they all gave up on me.
“Lord, please heal me! Please heal me! Please.”
I try to crawl to the phone, but I can’t. I just can’t. The thought of dying alone terrifies me now.
“Lord!”
Another pain shoots within my chest and pulsates around my heart.
“Awwww!”
I cry, pressing my face to the floor. Something is squeezing my heart.
“Jesus.”
Waves of nausea roll through my stomach. This pain is bad. It is worse than the first stroke. That stroke drove my then-husband into fits of panic and anxiety as he reluctantly took over my family duties while ferrying me back and forth to the doctor. That’s when the first crack in my family structure appeared before opening a rift that later widened and drove everyone away.
“Lord,” I say softly. “Please.”
The pain subsides a little- but I know better. It is not gone for the moment or even for the night. It will return to torture me again. This blood disorder has been like a phantom vampire in my body, sucking my blood and leaving me dry and spent. Its abnormal flow triggered vitamin deficiencies, organ malfunctions, chronic fatigue, depression, and pain. The worse it got, the less my husband loved me. He stopped doing the little things. He began to look at me with disgust and exasperation. Our conversations turned from warm words to cold reports about the children and the bills. Then when the children grew up, it was only about the bills. Then when we couldn’t pay the bills, it was about nothing. Then he left and sent me divorce papers in the mail.
My daughter rejects me the most. She believes that if I was there for her, she never would’ve become an alcoholic. She’s right. I wasn’t there for her. I wasn’t there for anyone. I haven’t seen my baby girl in 11 years.
“Aw!”
The pain returns, this time in my back which means my kidneys are going haywire again.
“Lord! Father God! Please, Lord!”
It feels like someone is sticking a knife in my lower back and turning it.
“Oh God.”
A headache pulsates through my brain. I close my eyes. I am at the end of my rope. I want to give up. I want to breathe my last but all I can think about is my children.
two
Light reveals a pathway that I slowly follow. My body is still in pain, but numbed enough for me to walk. I continue down a filtered hallway with bright yellow light bleeding through beautiful stained-glass windows lining the walls.
When I get to the end, there He is. I have never seen Him before but I know who he is. He looks at me with deep love, with truth beyond my comprehension. I feel that He cares so, so much for me. I sense that He has been in pain, too, feeling each pang I felt; each irregular heartbeat; each blood vessel rupture.
His love is like a warm blanket wrapped around my soul. I realize that even my ex-husband could never have loved me as He does. Even my children do not have this love for me. His love is big and wide and I sense that it holds all my goodness, my quirks, my bad decisions. His love is a magnet that pulls me closer to Him.
Jesus’ love is wrapped in some kind of power that is silencing, firm, and flat. It feels peaceful. His power seems old and ancient as if it has been governing through tens of trillion of years.
In a span of just seconds, I become fully aware of how much of my life He holds in His hands. Jesus was there when the bleeding started. He was there when my husband left me. He was there when my children backed away from me. Jesus was there when the bank repossessed my only car. And on those long nights when I waited by the phone, longing and hoping to hear my daughter’s voice, He was there.
I can feel that Jesus was waiting for me to come to Him. He was patiently waiting for me to arrive here.
I know something now. I know that if only I touch Him, my pain will leave me and I will be forever healed.
Somehow, without speaking, we speak. Jesus knows that I am too weak to continue walking. So I kneel down, sort of, when I reach Him. And in our quiet understanding, I reach for Him. Since I am practically down on the floor, I can only touch Him at the level of His feet. So I touch the hem of His clothes, feeling the fabric between my fingers.
three
“Sophia? Sophia Wilcox?”
My eyes flutter open. I am laying in a hospital bed. My body feels warm. My head aches a bit.
“Sophia? Ms. Wilcox, can you hear me?”
It is a nurse standing over me.
“Yes.”
“Wonderful!” she says, clapping her hands. “You gave us a scare for a minute there, hon.”
“Where…?” .
“You’re at Brooknite Hospital. You’ve been here for a couple of days. We’ve been trying to find out what happened to you, but we can’t seem to find anything.”
“What? What do you mean?” I say, sitting up with surprising ease.
“Well, we’ve done everything on you, hon. We’ve done about every test out there given your history with internal bleeding and heart problems, but we can’t find anything. In fact, we can’t even find traces of that vascular surgery we did on you last summer.”
I smile while she says this. As I take note of my body, I can sense a heavy shadow has been lifted from within me. I can feel the weight removed. My blood has regained its energy, moving through my veins and vessels easily. I have not felt this warm and new since my wedding day.
“Ms. Wilcox, the doctor will explain the rest to you in a bit. He’s just looking over the results of the last test we did when the ambulance brought you in. Just sit tight…we’ll get to the bottom of this, hon.”
“Oh!” The nurse continues. “I almost forgot. Your daughter called. I told her you were getting some tests. She said she’s on her way.”
I lay back and sigh. Jesus healed me. He let me touch Him and I was healed.
“Thank you, Jesus.”
Copyright 2020. Michelle St. Claire. All Rights Reserved.