Final Word Friday: On Suffering

I missed the phone call.
I was loading the dishwasher and to be honest, I didn’t even hear it.
I called back and without a single “hello?” on the other end, I heard these words: “Can you help me? I don’t know what’s going on. I feel…. really awful.”

My friend began to describe their plight through some moments of panic and anxiety laced with depressive thoughts and I couldn’t tell them what they wanted me to tell them.  They wanted me to say, “It’s okay, you can make it, these feelings will end on ____ date.” But, I couldn’t tell them that. I could only offer a listening ear, some prayer, and lots of question asking to try to get to the root.

I could offer hope – in the form of – “this will end, I know it will.”
But I couldn’t tell them when.
I could offer empathy – in the form of – “I understand how painful this is.”
But I couldn’t change their situation.
I could offer guidance – in the form of – “you keep doing what you’re doing, I’m going to pray right now.”
But I couldn’t take the pain away for them.

It was heartbreaking enough to listen to, and my mind took me right back to the time where I lived similarly, always looking for the out, the end date, the concrete answer of when I would be okay again.

Rewind thousands of years and we see this cycle in a story told and retold through generations:

105,192 hours.
For 12 years, she bore the emotional and psychological baggage of being unclean and untouchable.
No hugs, kisses, or any type of intimacy with a husband (if she had one).
She could not prepare her family’s food (if she even had one)
She could not do housework;
She couldn’t be a wife;
She couldn’t be a mommy;
She had sat in an isolated house for 12 years staring at the walls.
For all intents and purpose, she was as good as dead.
She was a woman with the issue of blood, in a culture and religion and nation that deemed her unclean.

But then she hears about Jesus. He comes to her town. He’s healed others. She believes He can heal her.

Twelve years. Twelve years of no answers, of wanting healing, twelve years of waiting, twelve years of wishing, twelve years of the same draining health issues. 105,192 hours.

The story goes like this:

When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him.  And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had 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 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.”

Twelve straight years of the same suffering and pain and yet she persisted.
Twelve straight years of many doctors and spending all she had, only to receive no answers.
But, then… Jesus.

She hears about this man, she shouldn’t have even been in the crowd in the first place because she was deemed unclean by her society, yet she persisted in her pursuit of Him.

I love that this text allows us to know her inner thoughts.
“If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed,” she was determined.
So she ran after Him and pursued Him and persisted in her act of finding Him and seeking healing from the source.

Her sickness did not have the last word.
“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Where are you suffering today, friend?
Where do you need freedom?
Run after Him, find Him, push through crowds to get to Him, just reach out for a little bit of Him, pursue Him, seek Him, exhaust yourself pushing for Him and only Him.  This world will break our hearts ten ways to Sunday, but He will never. Our healing from whatever suffering we’re facing can only and ever be found in Him. 
…and when you find Him, however you find Him, He will have the final word to your suffering.
You will live an abundant life on this earth because of Him.
You will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
You will know His presence and His grace and His goodness in your life.
“Go in peace and be free.”