She had tried.
Different doctors. Different remedies. Different avenues.
Nothing had worked.
We cannot blame her for a lack of effort. She hadn’t sulked and played victim, but in spite of all her efforts, no one had been able to help.
No one had made things better.
Somehow she still had hope.
I sat in a sermon recently where the preacher said he had bumped into a circumstance that had given him a broken heart for 6 months. Honestly my response was to roll my eyes. Six months is but a drop in the bucket when you’re dealing with a problem that has persisted for years.
In this case a dozen years. Worse than her condition was the society around her that punished a sick woman for circumstances that were in no way her fault. Constantly bleeding meant you were constantly unclean. Constantly unclean meant you were constantly excluded from normal everyday life.
The things we take for granted were alien to her. She couldn’t have a hug. She couldn’t go to the temple and for fear of passing on her uncleanliness, she was avoided by anyone who knew of her condition.
Friendless, broke and hurting, she wouldn’t know what affection was for more than a decade. She couldn’t even ask Jesus for healing like everyone else, for risk of being stoned; for how dare she make one who was clean unclean by approaching Him.
With unflinching faith, she found a way around this. As only one living from desperation to desperation would do, she reached out for His hem.
And that was enough.
What her wages hadn’t been able to do her faith did. What the doctors were baffled by, cowered in the shadows of our Saviour and the problem that had defined her life came to a screeching halt in one instant.
It’s easy to forget just how powerful a Saviour we serve. It’s even easier when we’re dealing with a mountainous problem which has pigeon holed our vision into thinking we’re always going to be without help.
Jesus could have kept on moving but He didn’t. He could have gone on with Jairus and ignored the miracle that had been pulled out of Him without His consent. But He stopped.
He stopped to find her and talk to her because she mattered. Jesus stopped because His creation literally had God – stopping faith. He stopped to call her daughter because He wanted us to know that His heart is tender for everyone who has the label chronic.
In this story we see the heart of the Father and the Son coalesce to bless this woman God calls daughter.
Maybe your heart has been broken for more than a few moons.
Maybe you wonder where you fit in the large scheme of things.
Maybe it’s been so long that you’ve just about packed it in.
He still has a heart for you.
You’re still worthy of him stopping and maybe… just maybe your miracle is closer than you think.