Miracle, Interrupted

This blog is about that moment when you think all hope is lost. Sometimes we feel this way because, logically, we've done the math. There's only so much awesome to go around, and we just saw the last of it (you know what "it" is) plucked up by Sally, Bob, or Mike. Or maybe we got there too late for "it." Whatever happened...it sucks. Despair starts to overtake us. Someone else got what you've been waiting for. You feel like you're on the brink of a major vom, throwing up the pit that has settled in your stomach, when a voice says:

Just Believe. 

My favorite miracle of Jesus is the woman with the issue of blood, but yesterday it was pointed out to me that her miracle interrupted the miracle of someone else. Check out Mark 5:21-43.

Here's the breakdown:

There's this dude named Jairus who's 12-year old daughter is dying. He falls before Jesus and asks him to come heal his daughter. Jesus consents to go with him and sets out towards his house. On the way, the crowds throng him (delay), and a woman who has been suffering (maybe even dying) of a blood disease for 12 years thinks to herself: "if I can just touch the hem of Jesus' garment, I can be healed." So she presses through the crowd and touches JC. JC stops, looks around and starts asking his disciples: "who touched me?" The disciples are like: "are you kidding me JC, look at this crowd...we don't know who touched you." But Jesus is not having it, he's waiting around for this woman to come forward.

PAUSE.

I have always been wowed and blown away by this woman's faith. The story (for me) is usually about how she presses through the crowd with faith so awesome, that she knows if she can just touch his clothes. Not even His body. She doesn't have to get His attention. He doesn't have to speak to her. If she can just touch His clothes she'll be healed. What faith! So wowed by the faith that I never considered the despair. Jairus' despair. Imagine him. Imagine you are him.Your situation is urgent, and JC is wasting time trying to figure out who touched him! He has to be freaking out by now.

UNPAUSE.

The woman, having been healed (she stopped bleeding immediately) comes forward, tells Jesus what she thought would happen if she touched His garment, and proclaims to everyone that she is in fact HEALED. Jesus gives her some kudos; I bet the crowd is rejoicing, and suddenly some of Jairus' servants walk up and say:

“Your daughter is dead,”...“Why bother the teacher anymore?” Mark 5:35

If I'm Jairus...I'm about to throw up. I'm about to just lose it, screaming in the crowd. The thing I asked for, was just given to someone else, in my sight. Jesus was on His way to my house, when He was distracted by the needs of someone else. I'm probably having 1000 different crazy, messed up thoughts, when Jesus overhearing says:

"Don't be afraid, just believe."

I'm going to end the story there. We know that JC goes to Jairus' house and raises his daughter from the dead*, but...that moment where he almost gave up. I'm almost always in that moment, where everything that I want isn't happening, but yet seems to be happening for everyone else: the blessings, the raise/promotion, the new house, the new marriage/new baby, the peace, the contentment..."it." I'm in that moment so much, because it is easy to believe in the finite. There is a finite amount of "awesome" and there is a timeframe that we have to get it in. We believe in "windows of opportunity." But with God, there's no window. Jairus found that out...I'm trying to learn it too.

Less fear. More belief.


*There will probs be a part 2 on this portion.