untangling the web
KNOTS, TWISTS AND FAITH IN GOD
Woman with an Issue
I’m waiting for Jesus,
anonymous in this crowd of people,
who are hustling me, elbowing me, shoving me aside,
standing tall above me, and I am crushed under sweaty armpits.
I’m not meant to be here.
I’m forbidden to mix, to touch anything or anyone,
because the laws the men enforce say I’m unclean.
I’m weak and in pain, I have no strength
and what I’ve paid on doctors’ bills has left me with no money.
Bled dry in all senses of the word.
I lost my husband because of it – this dreadful scourge.
He divorced me through no fault of my own,
because not even he could touch me,
and so, I’m waiting for Jesus.
He came.
And I worked myself up into a bit of tizzy,
Summoning up all the courage I ever possessed,
to break the law and reach out
to touch – not Jesus himself,
because that would be a step too far –
to touch the tassel on the hem of his robe.
Because, I figured, that would be enough
To make me well again.
But it didn’t end there, all pretty conclusion
with me healed and slinking away into the sunset.
“Who touched my clothes?” Jesus said.
“Someone touched me. I felt power going out of me.”
With tears streaming down my face, and my body trembling,
I knelt down in front of Jesus.
Kneeling there, shaking,
surrounded by religious law-abiding men and women reproaching me,
having to talk about my body,
about – how to say it? – women’s problems.
With Jairus, the righteous synagogue leader standing there,
tapping his fingers because he wanted Jesus all to himself,
and all the people who usually give me a wide berth,
and I told him about my twelve years of non-stop bleeding,
my heartache, my pain, my isolation, my shame, my divorce – everything.
And how I tried to fix it myself,
but it drained me further, and all resources failed.
I poured my heart out, with all these pure and holy people
standing there, listening in on me, the unclean woman,
worth nothing, valued by no one.
Then Jesus spoke to me, yes, to unworthy me, and me alone,
“Daughter, you are healed. You are saved. You are whole.
Go in peace.”
So I walked away, still with tear-stained face,
but also with a clean body not in pain, and my head held high.
And these words thundering in my head and my heart:
Daughter, saved, healed, whole.