Shannon R. Hess

Today read:

Luke 8:43-48 and Matthew 9:20-22 and Mark 5:25-34

Something happen to me last week that made me realize a few things about myself and about God’s heart. Here is the story.

I was very very hot and running late to a ladies prayer night in my home town, that I was actually the host of for that night. When I got there I realized I had my husband’s keys and I was locked out. As I was calling for help, I felt someone standing next to the truck. I looked over to see a man waiting for me. I knew him, he is a guy that walks around town a lot and we have grown quite fond of him and enjoy his friendship. So I got out, even though I was tired, so hot already and the sun was so bright. He was standing there with a hot cup of coffee in hand, waiting for me.

So I sat down on the ledge by him while he drank his coffee and smoked his hand rolled cigarettes, his last vice- as he calls it. He has been asking my friend and I a question for weeks, and we couldn’t really understand what he was asking due to a stroke he had a while ago, so he wrote it down. He left a letter in my purse one day, so I was glad to see him so I could answer him finally. He wanted to know about the “women with the issue of blood” that Jesus healed in the Bible. So I started to tell him where it was, and kinda make small talk. He looked at me and said “read it all to me” so I pulled out my bible and started reading. As I was reading two women I know well were walking by, and I looked up and said hello how are you with a normal smile… they looked at me like I was an alien and didn’t say a word back. I’m sad to admit that it crushed my heart for a minute. I stopped reading without realizing it, watched them walk by me wondering what I could have done. Then he spoke to me and broke my concentration but I had a brief life changing moment where I realized I can be like this world or I can be like Jesus.. but I can’t be both… not anymore. So I pulled my attention back to the story, and I pretended to shake it off.

He was so eager to talk about it, the fact that “she has waited 12 years with this issue and no doctors could help her, and one touch! One touch was all it took” that meant there was hope for him to be healed.. right?! I told him yes, of course there is always hope. My aunt showed up to unlock the door we all went in and we prayed. He left believing he would walk out his healing. He was the only one to come in the door that night, and I was okay with that. He was worth it.

Later that night at home when I was reliving the whole sidewalk encounter, it hit me, not one thing! I hadn’t done one thing to those women, except say hello. I was sitting on the street by a man who gets ignored most of the time or told to go on, and I was reading a bible story on healing. I was no longer part of their world, so I must have looked like an alien for real to them. and that is okay. I’ll never stop saying hello or loving or hoping and praying for them and all the other “thems” out there. I won’t let it hurt my feelings again either, instead I’ll rejoice in the hope that I look different now and that I am different. The breath of a living God fills my lungs.

Lord, right now I pray that Your will and Your heart override any flesh feelings we are still dying to daily. I pray that we feel comfortable in who You call us to be, and who You say we are and that we always stop for the ONE. I pray that we always believe the fact that You are the same today as You were yesterday and will be tomorrow. We thank You that Your love never fails us! Never! Lord I thank You that this earth is just a temporary home, and that there is so much more beauty and life up ahead. In Your name we pray, Amen

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.“

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.