Please Stay on the Path: Thoughts on Healing

A few days ago, in my daily Scripture reading I found myself re-reading the story of the woman with the issue of blood in Luke 8:42-48. I've read the story a number of times, I've heard sermons, read devotions, and at one point in grad school, I even did a narrative piece in my Storytelling class about it. But the thing about Scripture, actually one of the things I love most about Scripture, is that it's always new, and this time, as I read it, I noticed two things:

1. The woman in the story wanted to be healed so much that she pursued Jesus and was willing to take a massive risk just to touch Him.

2. It mattered, she mattered to Jesus. He stops everything to acknowledge her.

In the last 8-9 months this story has come to mind often. I'm healing- physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually from a host of ailments it would take me awhile to explain. And there are moments when my mind is wandering, as it often does, and this story comes to mind, often accompanied by the gentle but deeply probing question, "Do you want to be made well?"

The question, which I believe is one the Lord is posing to me in those moments, comes from a different story of healing in Scripture, this one found in John 5:1-5. In the story, Jesus asks an invalid of 38 years, "Do you want to get well?" before He heals him.

An unexpected message on my Sabbath walk at the New York
Botanical Garden

Jesus asks me the same question, gently, but too persistently to ignore. Do I want to be healed? How much of who I believe I am is tied up in my scars or illness or gaping wounds? What does it look like for me to be whole and what changes if I am? Who am I really if I am whole and safe and loved?

Recently, walking on a trail at the New York Botanical Garden, I came across a sign. It said, "Please Stay on the Path. This is a fragile ecosystem. Please help protect it by staying on the path." It made me laugh, and I chuckled as I snapped a picture an instagrammed my thoughts. It made me chuckle because I heard God's voice gently asking me to stick with healing, and He asked in a way that thoroughly demonstrated how well He knows me. My week had been a mess, and I felt raw. But in my messy, broken, still healing state I was seen by God and gently, lovingly pursued. This ecosystem is indeed fragile, and while He tends it, my job is to stay on the path. 

There's no after story in Scripture for the woman with the issue of blood. Unlike House Hunters Renovations there is no follow-up showing her life after the renovation of healing. What happened once she was restored to community? Was it happy home and hearth for her, or did she find herself started on a longer journey of rebuilding everything she had lost in twelve years? I'm left with all kinds of questions. But it doesn't make me doubt that I want His healing. The same healing He offered her, and many others in Scripture. 

Healing for me is this messy but wonderful journey of joy, fear, pain, sadness, hope, unlearning, and re-learning. Yes, I want to be made well. Yes, I want to risk it all to touch the hem of His garment. Yes, I want to breathe deeply and run with ease. Yes, I want to be known and loved. And so I stay on the path.