Maybe you know how hard it is to move forward continually through pain & judgement from others? …to move forward through feeling unfit, unwanted, unworthy? being looked down upon, being told you don’t belong & being treated as less than…
This guy…He was cut off completely from everything & everyone he’s ever loved No support system. No hope.
Disfigured and decomposing, the man with palsy was with chronic and the incurable— and everyone believing he deserved it—so it wasn’t just fear from others, it was also shame. What was there to look forward to? Could hope even be found w/ something so impossible? Somehow the man “full of leprosy,” was able to dig deep to find whatever little bit of anything that was left in him to show up still.
To venture away from his banishment, put his decomposing, deteriorated body in public eye, with embarrassment & shame— He did it.
I don’t know how he did that. He falls at the Savior, with pain and hesitance: ‘Lord if thou wilt..’ Not, can He heal me… but *will He?
“I will.” He touched the untouchable & He cured the incurable. Sores were closed, deformities removed, missing limbs restored, smell of rotting flesh fled & skin made smooth.
And I don’t doubt that Jesus’s compassion is what really healed this broken man. How long has he been stripped of someone’s time? Attention? How long has this man been deprived of touch? compassion? love?
When we wonder what is there to look forward to, we remember Jesus. Our impossibilities are not a struggle for Jesus.
He will not ‘meet His match’ with our suffering. When everything and everyone says no, Jesus says, I will, with compassion that knows no bounds. And we can.be.whole.
xoxAL