As Jesus went, the people pressed around Him.  And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His garment and immediately her discharge of blood ceased… Jesus said, “Someone has touched Me…” 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. And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”  ::: Luke 8

and:

on a morning barely light, while I stumbled over my slippers and my broken way, and gave my love a kiss and a thermos on the way out the door and I settled in to listen to the message in the quiet with my coffee and my bible and the my day-plan already spinning tired in my head:

The pastor, he spoke these words of God’s truth straight to my thought-whirling-weary heart and said something like this:

We have to “press our way through”.

We have to be “desperate enough to say I want to touch the hem of His garment”.

And I heard it.

And I replayed it.

And I inhaled it deep.

And I listened again.

And the tears welled.

That was it.

That thought.

The one that has been settling slow over three days past, that I hadn’t put into spoken word.

Like her.

That’s what I want for.

That’s what I hope for.

To be so singular in focus.

Like her.

To be like her:

To be faith-pouring- out like her.

To be proud- dumped- empty like her.

To be Him- only- truth- seeking like her.

To be on-my-knees-humbled-in-awe like her.

And her?

The way she hemorrhaged sin and blood twelve years.

How she lived lonely- lost on the fringe:

of life.

of community.

of hope.

and then was desperate.

desperate enough.

enough.

she had:::

enough.

And He knew she would come:

to bore a one-way-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel through the mobbed and dusted street to reach- touch the fringe

:::just the edge

of who He was.

Who He is.

She knew:::

it would be:::

::: enough.

To save her.

To heal her…

her once- forever- bleeding heart:::

that plagued her and followed her and chased her and shattered her and forced her to live less than who she was created to be.

And she knew.

He could make her whole.

She knew.

Just the hem…

Could hem her close to Him.

Comforted, close and kept.

So she reached.

and in her trembling before the King,

::: she found what He had called her to.

Hope.Joy.

Healing.

And, in just a while,

He would bleed for her.

Instead.

To heal:::

the hard- heaving : bound- up : fallen- down world

And, in forever- gifted grace, and abounding, love- filled mercy- words, He would say to us, like He said to her:

“Your faith has made you well; go in peace.”  ::: Luke 8

Press on.

Through the crowd.

Press on.

He loves you.

Reach for Him.

Be desperate for Him.

Taking her by the hand he said to her… “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”  ::: Mark 5