I went out looking for Jesus one day. My twelve-year-old daughter, the light of my life and the joy of my heart, was on the verge of death. Jesus was our last hope. I didn’t
want to leave her side, but I was desperate.
So, after I heard that he was returning from the region of the
Gerasenes, I went out to meet him.
Unfortunately, I was not alone.
Thousands of people were waiting on the shore that day for his boat to
return. Word had spread; people were
everywhere! I’d never seen such
crowds. But I was determined. If he could help my little girl, I would walk
through hot coals to make that happen. She
was everything to me, the apple of my eye, and she was dying. There are no lengths a desperate father will
not go to in order to help his beloved child.
Luckily,
I was able to make my way to him. It
doesn’t hurt, I suppose, to be a synagogue ruler after all. Thus, the crowds parted and before I knew it, I
found myself face down on the ground before him, pleading for the healing of my
little lamb. And when he agreed
to come with me, I was overjoyed. A
glimmer of hope began to grow in my heart.
But
before we had gone twenty feet, he stopped and started looking around. He said someone had “touched his
clothes.” Of course someone had touched
his clothes, there were people crowding all around him. His disciples even reminded him of that. But he insisted on finding who it was.
Then a
woman fell down before him on the road and admitted that she was the one who
had touched him. She went on to
tell him that she had been bleeding for twelve years and had tried everything
to be healed of her affliction, but instead of getting better, she had just gotten
worse. He waited patiently as she told
him the whole story—twelve long years’ worth.
The same amount of time my little girl had been alive.
I was
starting to get a little panicky and frustrated over the delay, until I heard
what he said to her: “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your
suffering.” He called her daughter. This woman was someone’s little girl
too. In fact, he wanted her to know that
she was his little girl. She was God’s daughter. You see, he was not just healing her
body but also healing her soul. She
needed to know that she mattered. She
needed to know that she was valuable.
She needed to know that she was loved. And now she did.
From
that moment on, I knew everything would be okay. I knew my little girl was in good hands. Even after some of my friends met us on the
road telling us that my daughter was dead, Jesus was not deterred. He never flinched. He just kept walking.
To make
a long story short, he came into our house and brought peace to our chaos, joy
to our sorrow, and life to our death. He
took our daughter by the hand and whispered in her ear, “Little lamb, arise!” How could he have known that’s what I
called her? Absolutely amazing! And as soon as he took her hand, our little
lamb stood up. She was alive
again! Jesus had entered into our
desperation and brought celebration, taken away death and brought about life. Only God could do something like that.
That day I learned a valuable lesson: When it comes to life in the kingdom, desperation creates some of the very best soil
for God to do his work.
