I've been practicing Lectio Divina lately; taking one word from each verse of reading and re-telling the Gospel story focusing on just those words.
This morning, I was in Mark 5:25-34. It's the story of the bleeding woman, and my collection of words look like this:
A Endured Hearing Will In Power You See Whole Be
It goes like this....
I'm just a woman; no one special.
Outwardly, people understand that something must be wrong because I walk aloof from the crowds.
But inside, everything is raw.
Inside, I seem to only endure.
Inside is what can't be fixed by the doctors.
Inside, my heart is dying.
Hearing about Jesus-the Miracle Man-I rise.
I will get well if I do this.
I will get well if I touch Him.
I will....if?
I will get well.
And then, I feel it. It happened in me, the very place I needed to be healed.
He felt it, too. What was in Him had just been put in me.
Power....power....power!
He felt its release, I could see it all over His face.
But, why me?
I even heard His followers say, "You see the crowds...."
Because to everyone else I was just a woman. But to Him? I was a home for power, and He knew this, because Jesus could see me.
He listened as I told Him every detail of the past 12 years: the doctors visits, the medical bills, the discouraging reports.
I told Him the whole truth, with all the emotion mixed inside of it. I left nothing out.
And then He spoke to me. He said words I had been waiting so long to hear.
You may wonder, among all of Jesus' words in that one sentence, which one I hung on to most.
It was the smallest, maybe even the most significant word (coming from the smallest, most insignificant person in the crowd that day).
Be.
He said, "Be healed". Be what you've not been in twelve years...free to be a woman changed by the power of Jesus. Be a woman of power.
And so I am.
