Conduit of Healing
In scripture, there is a story of a woman who will not stop bleeding: Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years (Mark 5:25, see also Matthew and Luke). I often feel like this woman because I am desperate for healing, and it seems from my miscarriages that I will never stop bleeding. Now, I have a living child, but I still feel this need for healing. In the age of COVID-19, struggling with the need for healing from the virus and from loneliness and from racism, this story feels more present than ever.
The woman who was bleeding had nothing left to lose. No other options, no more money to explore them even if there were other options. All she wanted was what everyone does: to be made well and live. She heard about a random itinerant preacher who was famous for his healings. He didn't charge money, but still she might have been wary. She gathered her threadbare cloak around her and set off. I doubt she thought this time she would come home healed. But she had to try; she could not just sit at home and bleed alone. I have felt her desperation, and I admire her for letting it push her to keep going in spite of everything.
This is also my mom's favorite Bible story, and she shared with me why: because "if Jesus' robe can be a conduit of healing, then we can be too." My mom read it focusing on the healing, on the way we can let God work through us as God works through a bit of fabric in the story. I read the story focusing on the desperation, on just putting one foot in front of the other as long as I can. But desperation is exhausting and dulls the capacity for possibility, the belief that something good is in fact possible. Desperation might lead to good happening, but even then, as I have experienced with my own living child, desperation has shaped me to close up at any sign of pain. When I do reach out, my hand is shaky. My mom reads this story focusing on the capacity we have for healing inside of us. Yes, we may be exhausted, but we can look out for each other. We don’t have to do much- sign someone else up for their vaccine, donate to mutual aid funds supporting Black activists, calling up someone you haven’t spoken too in a while. These little actions can help us all to be made well.
I am continuing to sit with this story, continuing to see myself in the bleeding, in the reaching, and in the healing. I have a draft of my initial responses to this story sitting in my memoir on grief, but I am still trying to understand healing a bit more. Perhaps healing is something we just have to keep on seeking and keep on being.
