If I May But Touch

by Connie Keenan

Some women nearby were talking amongst themselves as I pressed by them. I had seen one of them, the younger one, many times before. She had always maintained a distance between us whenever I passed her. Though that, in itself, wasn’t any different from the way people usually treated me, she would always look at me with disdain and repulsion. As if my very presence, my life, was a nuisance to her, something to be avoided at all costs.

  “I was there when Jesus talked about the cup of cold water,” the older one said.

  The younger woman wrinkled her nose. I turned my head to avoid catching her attention.

  “A cup of cold water?” she asked.

  “Yes. He said something like, ‘Whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones will not lose his reward.’”

  “What does that mean? A cup of cold water is nothing. That man says things that are hard to understand. Hmmph.” The woman shrugged. “All right, well, maybe he does say wonderful things sometimes—but then he sits down to eat and drink with sinners and publicans.”

  The older woman, who might have been her elder sister, blinked and looked disappointed in her younger sister’s response.

  “I know, that’s true,” she admitted. “But I also heard about the adulteress.”

  “Adulteress? What adulteress?”

  “The one they were going to stone to death the other day. Jesus defended her. He wrote something on the ground and then he stood and told her accusers, ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.’”

  “Really?” Her eyes widened. “Then what happened?”

  “Then they dropped the stones they were holding in their hands. One by one, they dropped the stones. They left the woman alone. Her life was spared. And then Jesus told the woman she was forgiven of her sins, and to go and sin no more.”

  I didn’t bother to wait for the younger woman’s reaction. Rather, I turned to seek Jesus out from among the others in the crowd. My heart felt as if it were burning inside of me.

  Your sins are forgiven. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

  He had come to the defense of an adulteress. They were about to execute her for her crime, yet he had stood between her and her accusers. One man, alone, against a crowd bent on ending her life.

  I hadn’t done anything to deserve my affliction. Those twelve years of illness and loneliness.

  But I still wasn’t any better than that woman. I also harbored sin in my heart. I had often felt anger and resentment towards those who had mistreated me. Sometimes, I’d cursed—in a whisper, but still—at those who had treated me badly. I’d been envious of those who lived normal lives, asking myself why I was going through all this but they weren’t. All of those things were sinful, just as sinful as what the adulteress had done.

  Yet Jesus had come to the defense of a woman who’d been at the point of execution for her sin. Would he come to my defense, too?

  And those words about a cup of cold water! That woman had acted like it was something meager. She must have never known thirst, or for that matter, hunger.

  Besides food, people had offered me a cup of water. Along the way during those years of my condition, a precious few had shown me compassion. Not many, but those who had would not lose their reward from the Father.

  I needed to reach him. Oh, how I needed to reach him! More than ever, I needed to touch Jesus. More than I’d ever needed anything in my life, I needed him.

  The chance was there, laid out before me, now. That day, that hour. I could not let it pass.

  “Jesus! Jesus! Wait!” a man’s voice cried out.

  Now what was happening? I was getting closer but still needed to bend to see past a tall man in front of me.

  Was that Jairus? Yes—I’d seen him before, one of the rulers of the synagogue. Confusion swept over me as I watched people moving out of the way for him. That powerful man fell to his knees at the feet of Jesus.

  “Oh, Jesus, my daughter, my little child!” he cried. “You must help me. My daughter is at the point of death. Please, I beg you, come to my home. Quickly—she doesn’t have much time. Heal her, please, Jesus. I don’t want my little one to die.”

  Placing a hand on the man’s shoulder, Jesus said something to him. I couldn’t hear it, exactly, but I saw him nod, regarding the dying girl’s father with a gentle expression. Then he turned and began walking away with Jairus.

  He was leaving. Every step was taking him farther and farther away from me.

  “Oh, no. Jesus, no, please,” I whispered under my breath.

  He was walking away. With him, he was taking my hope, whatever thin sliver of hope I had left.

  Now, now. Jairus is an important man. His daughter’s healing takes precedence over any miracle you need from Jesus. He doesn’t have time for you. You don’t matter.

  That voice was back. I could hear it berating me, even with the throng of people pressing against me. I had a clear choice, with very little time to decide: I could stand there and let it defeat me or I could ignore it with whatever strength I had left. Without another thought, even more desperate now, I pushed, just as the rest of the people were doing.

  All I needed was a moment. I didn’t even need to touch Jesus himself—not his hand or his shoulder or his feet.

  All I needed was to touch his clothes. The hem of his garment. That would be enough. This man who had healed others, who spoke with a wisdom and an authority that until then had never been seen before, who could chase away the demons that tormented men, this man could easily heal me…even if all I did was touch the fabric of his robe.

  I don’t know if it was my emotions—the fear, the pain—but my body again betrayed me. Blood flowed out of me, a warm, crimson river that instantly ran down my legs to my feet, staining my clothes. Someone pushed against me and my head covering tumbled down to my shoulders.

  Now I would be exposed.

  A man glared and pointed at me, gritting his teeth as he shouted, “It’s the woman with the blood! She touched me! You touched me, you unclean thing!”

  I collapsed to the floor. As often happened, the flux was sapping my strength. I felt weak and dizzy but I couldn’t stop now.

  Even if I wasn’t as important as that man, Jairus, I had to continue. I’d come so far. Jesus was only a few feet away. I would crawl if I had to—and that was just what I did. I crawled the rest of the way. People cried and screamed around me, calling me terrible names.

  Still, I crawled on my hands and feet.

  If I may but touch the hem of his garment, I told myself, I will be healed.

  I couldn’t let anything prevent me from going on. The sea of people around me became a blur; only Jesus was clear in my eyes. I said a silent prayer of thanks that the same crowd that had slowed me was also slowing him. I stretched out my arm, stretching myself forward, until my hand touched his garment’s hem.

  I didn’t pull on the fabric; I only touched it. That was all that was necessary. It happened even faster than I thought it could. Within that same moment, the heavy river of blood disappeared. It was instant, how the strength sapped from me returned. I had to bite down on my lower lip to prevent from letting out a shout of joy, of the release of my pain.

  I’m healed. Oh, oh, my God, my God—it’s over! Twelve years and it’s over. My suffering is over, the issue of blood is over, it’s over!

  In front of me, I could see Jesus. Suddenly, he stopped walking. His feet, clad in sandals, were spread apart, grounded in place. Instinctively, I tried to crawl away but was trapped by the others around me.

  “Who touched my clothes?” I heard him ask.

  “Jesus, you see the crowd around you, all these people,” one of the men with him said, “and you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

  If Jesus heard the disciple, he made no motion and said nothing in reaction. He had asked a question.

  And he was waiting for an answer. An answer that only I could give him.

  I had had the audacity to touch him. I, a woman who had been unclean. Was he
going to scream at me in outrage? Would he, like so many others had done over the years, look at me in disgust and claim my dirty hands had defiled his clothes? Would he take away my healing? Would he make the curse return to me?

  My first thought was to run. To run away and hide myself. Hadn’t I already spent so many years of my life hiding? I was so tired of hiding and sickness and of the loneliness both of those things had brought to me.

  “I touched your clothes, Jesus. It was me,” I replied in a small voice.

  It was hard to speak. I threw myself down on the ground before him, my breathing coming in gasps as I wept.

  When I could finally speak, I said, “You are my only hope, Jesus. I have been so sick and so alone for many years. I was desperate for Your help. I came here to find You. My Lord, You are the only one who can heal me, who can make me clean. Please, please have mercy on me.”

  It was quiet for some moments. All that could be heard was the sound of my crying.

  “Daughter…”

  Stunned, I lifted my head to meet His gaze. Had I heard correctly? Had Jesus called me “daughter?”

  No one ever called me by my name. It was as if I was unworthy of being referred to by my name. My condition had rendered me something with no name, and it was as if I had no feelings, either, no soul and no heart. I was known only as “the woman with the issue of blood.”

  But Jesus had called me “daughter.” He’d said it so tenderly, too. Over the years, so many people would look at me, but they never really saw me. Jesus, in those moments, was looking straight at me. He saw me.

  And in that blessed face was acceptance. I was accepted by Him! Sweetness, gentleness. And a love more powerful than anything I had ever experienced was shining back at me through those eyes.

  “Your faith has made you whole,” Jesus told me with a smile. “Go in peace.”

  I was calmer. He had calmed me. Still, I was trembling, and yet I somehow was able to rise to my feet. There were other people around—the men and women who had shouted at me, his disciples, Jairus. Yet right then it was as if only Jesus and I stood there, with Him looking at me in an encouraging manner. He was letting me know that I had done nothing wrong.

  On the contrary: He was pleased that I had sought Him with nothing more than my faith in Him.

  I turned then, because I knew He had to leave and go to that sick child. No one troubled me or said a hard word to me as I made my way out of the crowd. People were looking at me…but now in a very different way.

  I was no longer defiled or dirty. No longer sick. No longer under the curse. Because something happened to me that day. Yes, I was healed. I had gone to seek Jesus, to touch His garment so that I could be made whole.

  But so much more had transpired between us that day.

  That was the day that I was healed of my affliction. More importantly, it was also the day that I realized that God had not forgotten me after all. That He had always been there…in the divine peace that had swept over me and rescued me from thoughts of harming myself that day on the mountain…in the cup of cold water that He had placed on someone’s heart to give me to quench my thirst. In so many other moments throughout my difficult life, God had never abandoned me. He had always been there, waiting patiently for me to come to Him.

  And to Him, I did have a name, and a heart and feelings and a soul. To Him, I was someone. I belonged to Him.

  I had always been His daughter.

  THE END