Mark 5:25-34 "And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors nd spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out of from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
There are several keys to this story. The woman had been bleeding / suffering for twelve years! The doctors of the time could do nothing to ease her pain. While she submitted to the doctor's care, it cost her all her money and I imagine her hope as well. Put yourself in the woman's shoes for a moment, the doctors are telling her she is hopeless and are most likely resorting to some "questionable" practices. I am sure her friends are telling her that she needs to just accept her fate and give up... but she doesn't. She is desperate.
Then she knows that Jesus is coming, she knows of his miracles and most importantly believes he can heal her. So she acts on her faith and is healed. She could have easily saw the crowd and said "oh well, there are so many people, I can not possibly reach him." But she took a chance and held on to her faith and trusted in God's power.
After this miracle, Jesus went and raised a girl from the dead. That story is even a little more telling - the people were there already mourning the little girl, so everyone was telling the parents to give up hope - but through the faith of the parents the girl was healed.
God can do all things - the Bible is full of examples... the common thread is faith. It is not always our own faith that heals us, but the faith and prayer of others can help keep us strong and heal us too. The one question I can not answer is this - Why as Christians do we allow the world to rob our faith? Our faith can move mountains, raise the dead, the blind can see, and the lame walk - all through faith - it only makes sense that Satan would do everything in his power to rob us of our faith and in turn the blessings God has for us.... Why do we let him?
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