The Woman with the Issue of Blood

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of the woman with an issue of blood.  I read it in my devotions this morning and was encouraged by it once again.  I read it from the book of Mark, chapter 4.  Jesus has just spoken to Jairus, who wants Jesus to come and heal his daughter, and as they head to Jairus' home, our friend makes her move.

Do you remember who she is?  She is a Jewish lady who has been sick for 12 years.   She has seen doctor after doctor, and the result is that she is no longer just sick, but she is broke and sick.  Her illness makes her unclean.  Anyone who touches her is thus made unclean.  She is probably in the habit of staying home so that others will not be contaminated by her.  Venturing out in the crowd may be nerve wracking for her after 12 years of uncleanness.  She might be afraid of seeing someone she knows, who will point out her uncleanness and challenge her decision to be out and about.  She has not given up, though, she is still looking for a cure, and she has heard about Jesus.  As he heads for Jairus' house, she is among the many in the crowd, waiting for a chance to touch him. 

I love her faith.  She has done her homework on Jesus.  Perhaps she has seen him heal others.  Her faith is so great that she believes she can be healed by touching the hem of his robe.  It is so great that she is willing to touch a man, a rabbi, and risk making him unclean  She doesn't need him to talk to her, to make a big deal of healing her.  She will just reach out and touch him if she can just get close enough.  It doesn't matter that she shouldn't touch a man who is not her husband, tradition and taboos will not stand in the way of her healing.   She is desperate for healing and wholeness.

She moves along with the crowd as Jesus heads to see Jairus' daughter.  There is pushing and shoving and jostling in the narrow streets as everyone tries to hear what Jesus might say next, or see what he might do.  Perhaps the crowd helps her along by squeezing her forward, but all of a sudden, she is there, almost beside him and she sees her chance.  She reaches, her hand outstretched.  He moves forward and his robe sways behind him, it touches her fingers and she feels the healing flowing through her body.  It is a startling but unmistakeable feeling.   She is well again.  She stands still, contemplating the beauty of that moment and whispering her gratitude.  The crowd moves away from her and she turns, headed home to tell her neighbors what has happened, but Jesus is not done with her.

She hears him speak.  "Who touched my robe?", and her heart begins to drum in her chest. Why did he ask this question?  He knew who she was and what she needed.  His disciples are indignant, after all, they are in a crowd, everyone has touched him, but Jesus insists.  He is asking her to reveal herself, to make herself known to the crowd, and she sees that she cannot escape.  Is he angry?  She approaches him with fear and trembling.

I think that by the time she got to him, Jesus is smiling.  He is delighted to see her step out, perhaps his arms are outstretched.  She kneels at his feet and tells him everything- the whole story.  She spills out the pain and frustration of her condition.  She shares the difficulty of being so ill under the Jewish law.  It complicated her life so much.  Anyone who wanted to see her must calculate carefully to make sure they are not unclean on a holy day.  She tells about the doctors who offered their useless "cures" and the disappointment that followed every visit as once again, the cure failed.  She shares the story of how she heard about him and the miracles he had done, and finally, she tells him how she was healed immediately and knew that her faith had been rewarded.  The final step is taken.  She shares all the pain with him and lets it go.

Why did Jesus call her out?  I think it is because Jesus wanted her to own her faith.  He wanted her to reveal her heart to him willingly.  I think Jesus is still like that.  He loves our faith, and he wants us to own our faith.  He wants to hear the story. 

Married Life

It's hard to let my anniversary go by without saying something about it.  Yesterday was 31 years with Mark.  31 years of ups and downs.  Somewhere in there was lots of wondering if we could really make it, but lately it's jut been lots of gratitude that we stayed the course.  This year we celebrated simply, a morning at the thrift stores and lunch at a local Mexican restaurant that made me long for La Roca in a way I never thought I would.

31 years together means we have much more life together than we had apart.  31 years means the kids are almost gone- Charis will graduate this year and Zoe next.  Empty nest is on the horizon. 31 years means that talk of 50 years together doesn't seem that far fetched.  I am so grateful for 31 years.

After 31 years it's hard to know what to do to improve your relationship.  Not that ours picture perfect and therefore needs no help, but because we understand the limitations of our relationship, our partners and ourselves.  In a sense our expectations are more realistic.  There are, however, two things that have changed our relationship over this past year.  The first was praying together every night.  We took the 40 day prayer challenge and it grew.  (Read about it here:  http://onacleardaywv.blogspot.com/2012/03/prayer-experiment.html ) We prayed together every day for a long time, something we had been unable to manage earlier in our married life.  Honestly, we no longer pray together every day, but we do pray every night that we go to bed together, (we try to do that most nights) and that prayer time has become very precious.  It has changed our relationship.  It has changed the way I look at my husband.

Decorating the Christmas tree- 2012

Another thing that has changed our marriage over the last few months is getting up together in the morning. Mark is a school bus driver as well as a pastor, and he gets up at 5:30 every morning.  Getting up early is something that I have never been able to do consistently, but as I prayed about what to do to strengthen our marriage, I began to feel very strongly that this was the right thing to do.  I really had no clue that it would change my marriage.  Mark was perfectly willing for me to stay in bed.  He tried to turn off his alarm before it rang and crept around the bedroom in the dark getting dressed, trying not to wake me.  He wouldn't ask me to get up with him, but I could tell immediately that he was glad I did.  We usually eat something together and then just read our Bibles before he gets ready to go to work.  I kiss him goodbye.  It's all very un-profound, but it has made our marriage better.  It has changed so many little things. In all honesty, I still miss a morning here and there.  I suffer from insomnia occasionally, and while Mark has no trouble going from weekend or vacation mode back to the work schedule, I struggle with that and sometimes sleep through.  But the unforseen benefits have been so great that I keep trying, and usually succeed.  A personal benefit is that there is so much more time in my morning.  Getting up at 5:30 gives you much more time than getting up at 7:00 or 7:30. 

So, is there a moral to this story?  I don't know.  Just don't give up.  Keep trying to do the right thing for your marriage.  Enjoy your spouse.  Have a great day.

Praying Over the Pieces

This morning in my devotions I read this passage from Psalm 5 in "The Daily Message":


"Listen, God!  Please, pay attention!
  Can you make sense of these ramblings,
  my groans and my cries?
  King-God, I need your help.
Every morning
  you'll hear me at it again.
Every morning
  I lay out the pieces of my life
  on your alter
  and watch for the fire to descend."


While I do try to spend time in prayer every morning, with varying degrees of success, this passage made me think of it in a different way today.  At first the word "pieces" made me think of a broken thing, and that I should bring the broken pieces of my life to God and let him burn them away, or purify them with his fire somehow.  I thought of Elijah and the prophets of Baal and how the fire came down and consumed all of his offering.  Honestly, I thought it might be pretty sweet if God's fire would come down and consume some of the painful things in my life, so I could be free of them.  I made a list of the broken things in my life- actually, it was a partial list, as I didn't want the exercise to bring me to the Slough of Despond. (Once started I thought I could probably go on all day.)  Here are a few that made my list:  the pain of broken relationships and past hurts, real and imagined.  My people pleasing tendencies which, despite my best efforts, eventually manage to creep in to nearly everything I try to do for God.  My failures as a Wife and Mother. 

Then my thoughts turned, thanks to my husband, to the other "pieces" that make up my life- mostly my roles as a woman.  Wife, Mother, Mother-in-Law, Grandmother, Pastor's Wife, Woman, Sister, Friend, Teacher, Writer (of sorts), Sometime Speaker.  These are all part of the puzzle that come together to be me.
I thought I should offer those things to the Lord, also.  I need the fire of his Holy Spirit to descend on those things and enable me to be all of them for his Glory, to purify my motives and my efforts.

So, I spent some time in prayer this morning, offering God all these "pieces", these fragments of my life.  I prayed that his fire would fall, his purifying fire, his consuming fire, his enabling fire.  Did I see it come?  I'm not sure, but I expect it in his good time.   When I finished my prayer time, by the way, I felt surprisingly whole.

The Prayer Experiment

Throughout our 30 year marriage my husband has always been in the ministry.  He has not always been a pastor, but he has always been in ministry.  He has been a spiritual leader in our home as well in the places he has served, but we have never been good at praying together.  Now trust me, if you had asked we would have said that prayer together was important and should be part of every marriage, but we floundered when it came to making it a regular part of our own.
Then my husband saw this video, http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/10/couples-who-pray-together-have-better-sex/, while preparing for a sermon series on marriage, and decided to suggest this prayer challenge to the couples in our church.  He asked me to join him in taking the challenge a couple of weeks before he gave the sermon,  and I agreed.  After all, the challenge is very simple.  Pray 5 minutes for each other, every day, for 40 days.   All the stress is removed, all the challenges of staying awake while your spouse prays, etc..  The benefit might be that it improves your marriage, not to mention your relationship with God.
So, we began.  We prayed together every day.  We probably only missed 3 or 4 of the 40 days.  We prayed before he went out the door.  We prayed during the ads on our favorite TV show, we prayed in bed before we dropped off to sleep.  Did our marriage get better?  Well, I have nothing but anecdotal evidence, but I believe it did.  We began to talk more, to share more about what we were feeling, and to pray about issues that had previously troubled us but gone unshared.  I believe I became less defensive and he became more willing to share his heart.
We prayed for 40 days and called it a success.  We prayed on.  We continue to pray,  6 months later, and I believe we continue to see the benefits.  How about you, are you up for a good challenge? 

Praying for Miracles

What are you praying for today?  I am praying for miracles.  

To me, the greatest miracles are spiritual, rather than physical.  I mean, I am as happy as anyone to see a miracle of physical healing or recovery, but sometimes I think we discount the miracle of spiritual transformation. 

After all, a miracle is "An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God".  With that definition in mind, what is more miraculous than salvation or spiritual transformation?  Every time we witness a genuine conversion or see spiritual passion reignited it the hearts of the people around us (or ourselves, for that matter), it is a miracle.  

There are no ruts deeper than our spiritual ruts, no act more foreign to human nature than the act of letting God control our lives.  The lust of the eyes, the lust of the heart and the pride of life run deeply and swiftly through our veins and we resist transformation.  There is no miracle greater than that of true repentance and turning to God.

So, today, I am praying for miracles. 

Thoughts on Prayer

Prayer is a Biblical topic that is rarely preached on.  It's part of the measure of a Christian, yet it is not often discussed among believers. Training for prayer is practically unheard of, though training for sharing the Gospel or preaching or being a successful Christian business person is readily available. Let's face it, some of the statements that the Bible makes about prayer seem contradictory and even a little embarrassing, and I think that adds to our reluctance to offer concrete teaching about prayer.  There is no money back guarantee of success. In fact, sometimes I think success in prayer is sort of elusive, like humility- if you claim to be humble, you probably aren't, really.  While I sometimes tell people that I do pray or will pray for them, I make no claim to being a successful pray-er- and who would? 

Yet, in my heart, I feel the need for more prayer.  Some days I sense that I cannot deal with anything well without it, but it is often a low priority.  Trust me, I know that I can pray anywhere at any time, and I know that we are supposed to pray without ceasing, but Jesus often got up early in the morning and went away to pray.  (Have you ever wondered about the fact that Jesus had to pray?  I mean, he was God, yet when he wrapped himself with the bonds of humanity, he had to begin praying, just like any other human.)  If he went away to pray, shouldn't that be our example?  Sometimes I think the "pray without ceasing" thing is used as a cop out, to excuse praying only when it is convenient.  Trust me, I am reminding myself as I write these things, I make no claim to perfection in this department, yet I feel a need to talk about prayer, and to renew my commitment to pray daily in a focused way.  If Jesus had to pray to the Father, then how do I think I can live this life without doing the same?

Summer Time

The view to the left at one of our favorite spots on the beach- the north end of Hampton Beach.

The view to the right at the same spot.

The tiniest starfish I ever saw, found under a rock at low tide by Mark and Zoe.

This, our first summer in New Hampshire, has been a dry one- but only weather wise.  We have had beautiful, sunny days- and some refreshing, wonderful and simply amazing walks on the beach.  We had the heat wave that hit most of the eastern US last week, bringing temperatures to 100 degrees here in this usually cooler part of the world.  Yesterday afternoon, we were glad to see rain.  It was a relief from the sun and I found myself wishing for a long gentle soaking rain to nourish the earth here.  Today we have cooler temperatures that are very pleasant, and a sky promising more rain soon.  I must say, I hope the promise is fulfilled.