SAMANTHA ELLEY reflects on the New Testament account of a woman forced to face her fears – and her own experience doing so…
Northern Rivers, New South Wales, Australia
PICTURE: Julia Gomina/iStockphoto
“And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years, but no-one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped…Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace’.” – Luke 8: 43,44,47,48
My husband had been having indigestion problems for a while, so started using any kind of antacid he could get his hands on to stop the pain he felt in the middle of his chest.
As the pain continued, he kept it to himself, possibly not wanting to alarm me and possibly because of the fear of facing up to what the real problem could be.
“I have a newfound respect for the woman, who would have been declared unclean in her culture, but so desperate to get better, that she braved the ridicule and hate, to get to Jesus.”
One night, when I suggested we walk up to the local pub for dinner, he refused. The pain had gotten so bad, he couldn’t walk the one kilometre distance.
Finally, he knew he needed to see a doctor to find out what the issue was.
After a stress test, where you run on a tread mill for a specified period of time, and then an angiogram, where dye is run through your veins, all these tests to see how his heart was performing, the doctors took action.
The morning of his angiogram, I was working and at mid-morning, I rang the hospital to see what the results were. The male nurse casually mentioned that my husband of 15 years was being rushed to the nearest city hospital for a triple bypass. A wave of fear ran through me.
Apparently, his arteries had become so blocked: one at 60 per cent, one at 90 per cent and one at 100 per cent, that he was in imminent danger of a massive heart attack, so much so, they stationed a nurse next to him until he could go in for surgery.
My darling husband had been so fearful of what the truth was, he had ignored the pain. In fact, he’d already had a silent heart attack and wasn’t even aware.
But he turned desperate when the pain became unbearable and had to put his health in the hands of his medical team.
I have a newfound respect for the woman, who would have been declared unclean in her culture, but so desperate to get better, that she braved the ridicule and hate, to get to Jesus.
Through her fear, she kept her eyes on the goal of getting better, by positioning herself as close to Jesus as she could, to be able to touch him.
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Her doggedness paid off, although she wasn’t going to be let off easily, but only so Jesus could assure her. When He called out and asked who touched him, she must have wanted to run away, but she didn’t.
The day of my husband’s surgery, he had been transported to Brisbane by ambulance and I followed in the car a few hours later, after packing for the week ahead and getting our young boys looked after.
I watched as he was wheeled on a gurney to the operating theatre, where I couldn’t follow. An involuntary sob broke from me and after he disappeared through the swinging doors, I ran from the hospital and found a park to sit in and pray.
Finally, my husband worked through his fears and got the treatment he needed to stay alive and I worked through my own fears, trusting Jesus to get him through, as I sat in the nearby park, thanking Him for the skill of the surgeons.
Just like the woman who had reached out to Jesus, we discovered that instead of our fears being realised, we found Jesus simply saying, ‘Your faith has healed you. Go in peace.’
