Pressing in

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."

(Mark 5:24-34)

Yesterday I talked about encouragement. Here is the story of stories on encouragement!

The track season is over in Saratoga! For those of you who do not live here, I will give you a brief snapshot. There are only 20,000 people in Saratoga Springs. Within a 3 day period this year there were two 35,00 plus concerts and 48,000 people at the race track. It gets crowded around her. If you have never visited Saratoga in the summer, you need to before you die. It is a great place to vacation and there is some much to do.

Think of the crowds at the race track when there are 50,000 people pressing to see the horses run.

50,000 people in the heat of the summer and the oppressing humidity.

50,000 people who have no idea of who is pressing on them as the horses race to the finish line.

Think about the woman who was pressing in just to touch a piece of the clock of Jesus


I'd love to know more about this woman. This woman who was so desperate to be healthy that she was willing to defy social conventions and religious laws? For twelve years, she had lived with the bleeding. If it's the kind of bleeding it seems to be, then she had lived as well with the pronouncement of the Law that she was "unclean" (Leviticus 15:25-27). After so long, surely she had resigned herself to never being well, never joining in the joyful processions to the Temple for the festivals, never being a fully-participating part of the community. Depending on how wise her husband, family, and friends might have been, she might have resigned herself to missing much more than that. I imagine, any physical contact would have been out of the question.

So it's a true indicator of her desperation -- and I think of her alienation from people around her ..that she slips through the crowd to try and touch Jesus unnoticed. There's no raising of the voice from her, like the leper or the blind man who cried out to Jesus for healing. She doesn't even come and kneel respectfully, like the synagogue leader who got to Jesus just before she did.

"If I can just touch his cloak, I'll be healed," she reasons.

I wonder how many people in our world are like her.

No other options in life

No other friends who what to be near them

No other people to encourage and love them

Let me continue to be an encouraging person to those who are less fortunate or need comfort and care on the Adventure in Middle Grove