That the woman was desperate was an understatement! She had suffered twelve long years of bleeding, discomfort, and embarrassment; twelve long years of excuses and disappointments; twelve long years of broken promises and loneliness.
She stood apart from the crowd and waited, and watched, and prayed.
Jesus would pass by and as he did she would dive into the crowd, touch him, and then fade back into the crowd. Nobody would be the wiser and Jesus would never know!
She watched and waited. Her vigil dragged on for what seemed like hours and with each passing moment the crowd swelled. This worried her a little. “Maybe I won’t be able to get near to Jesus.” “No, I MUST touch him, he is my last hope!”
She prayed that much harder.
With the increased commotion and excitement the woman raised her eyes. Jesus was now approaching. She must prepare herself.
Plucking up her courage the woman issued one final plea to Abba, “Please let me be successful. Let me touch him. Then I can finally rest and be FREE!” Suddenly Jesus was in sight. The throng of people surrounded him. There was so much jostling going on in the crowd that the poor woman became afraid.
But she could not turn back now. She had no choice. Pushing and elbowing her way through the mass of people, she saw her opening. She didn’t think twice, she lunged ahead ignoring the crowd and stretched out her hand. Time seemed to stand still.
The crowd parted for a moment like the parting of the Red Sea and she had a clear path to Jesus. Then … she touched him!
“I touched his cloak,” she later recounted. “That’s all I did. People were pressing up against him. People were bumping into him. But it was all unintentional. I touched him because I had to. He was my last hope.”
“My life has never been the same since that moment, on that day, in that crowd. I touched him and my life changed. Gone is the embarrassment. Gone is the loneliness. Gone is the frustration.”
She recalled how, with her touch, she felt power surge through her body and the bleeding stopped. She said that she stopped and stared at Jesus just as he whirled around to see who it was that had touched him. He shouted out, “Who touched me?” But he already knew because she said, “our eyes locked.” “Who touched me?” he repeated. “But he wasn’t angry. His voice was gentle and a smile flashed on his face. He looked at me with such compassion that I couldn’t fade into the crowd like I wanted to. I collapsed to the ground in tears.”
Jesus approached the woman and extended his hand to her. Lifting her to her feet he said, “Dear woman you are made well because you believed. Go in peace.”
