My Story
Have you ever felt like nothing you do matters? Like the whole world is against you? In other words, have you ever felt hopeless? The devil loves to make us feel this way in order to stop us from reaching for the one true hope. When I first came to CTM in 2018 I was struggling with hope.
The year before had been one of the hardest of my life. I hated my job, my relationship with my husband hadn’t been good for years, I was the unhealthiest I have ever been, and my support base was almost nonexistent. Anxiety and depression were my companions.
Despite all of this, or maybe because of this, we decided to start trying for a child and miraculously got pregnant. I was so excited! It felt like we were healing. I was healing. Weeks later, as I watched what was far too much blood leave my body, I knew I was wrong.
I blamed God, but most of all, I blamed myself. In the weeks it would take for my body to recover and the months for my mind, I seriously thought about ending my life. I felt unclean, alone, and absolutely hopeless.
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The woman we are reading about this week went through this kind of isolation, pain, and hopelessness for YEARS. Please take a moment to read Mark 5: 25-34 NIV.
The passage teaches us of a woman who was desperate. Her body had been hemorrhaging for 12-years. Not only would she have been in extreme pain, but she would also have been isolated because women with this condition were considered unclean and therefor couldn’t interact normally with society. She had done everything she could to heal herself, spending everything she had and suffering even more pain. She was unclean, alone, and absolutely hopeless.
Until, one day, she heard of Jesus. It would have been easy to hear of this new healer and assume He would be like all the rest. She had no more money to give, even if He could heal her. Thankfully, Jesus’s healing isn’t something we can pay for. His presence alone brought her hope and gave her enough faith to just reach out. With that one little act, Jesus healed her.
What this passage teaches us about God is that He can bring hope to the hopeless. You see, God doesn’t want his children hopeless. He is the hope of the world! I learned this as I cried out seeking comfort and strength as I processed my miscarriage. And this woman learned it as nothing (not her pain, her past, or her status) stopped her from reaching out to the one true healer. Her hope wasn’t in vain and neither is yours.
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What is holding you back from accepting God’s hope? Are you reaching out? Using the sword method, discuss, what did you learn about God from this passage?
Heather is a contributing writer for Shaken & Stirred. She is a believer, a wife, and a mother to a wonderful (and sometimes crazy) one-year-old. She enjoys reading, playing video games, and listening to podcasts. She can usually be taking care of the home and playing on the floor with her daughter.
Photo by Daniel Monteiro on Unsplash