When Everything Fails. . .

When you are a child and you think about your future, it’s always perfect. You will be living in a big house with a fancy car with a happy family. It’s a picture of the perfect life.  Sometimes, the future is nothing like that childhood dream; there are so many variables, that many times life is anything but perfect.

You may have achieved the dream and live in that home with your family. Everything is going well. Then everything comes to a screeching halt. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem The Rainy Day said, “Into each life some rain must fall.” So the rain comes and brings change into the happy family life. However, it is not the kind of change you want.

This reminds me about the woman in Mark chapter 5. Her name in unknown but her story is powerful. She was a woman who lived in the proverbial big house and fancy car of her time. She was by no means poor but rain came into her life in the form of sickness. One day everything seemed to be fine; then she began experiencing change in her body. She thought that it would go away in a few days. But as the days grew into weeks and then weeks grew into months, she had to admit that she had a real problem. She was hemorrhaging and that was a problem.

Ecclesiastes 10:19b says, “money answers everything.” She was grateful for the money because it gave her opportunities that were not available to others. The doctors she saw promised a solution, but their words were useless. She was referred to the specialists; they were unable to help her also. When they failed, she tried holistic medicine, the results were the same; these doctors were unable to bring the change she needed into her life.

This woman lived in a society governed by religious rules. Her condition caused problems for her. A woman hemorrhaging in her society had a real problem. Leviticus 15:19 says, “‘If a woman has a discharge, and the discharge from her body is blood, she shall be set apart seven days; and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening.” She was continually unclean. This presented a problem for her family also because they were also always unclean. They deserted her.

The people in her religious community excluded her; she was unclean. The priest placed her on the list of persons excluded from worship and fellowship. So she lost her friends; the same friends that she supported through the difficulties and issues in their lives. In her yesterdays, she was a faithful friend. Today, she needed help and she could not depend on her friends. She was all alone.

Sometimes, if you need help, you can find yourself in more trouble when you look for help in all the wrong places. She went to the medical community, Mark 5:26 says, “She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse.” In the midst of her crisis, without money, family or friends she heard about Jesus. She thought, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”  She touched him and immediately the change she was searching for, was finally hers. She was healed and the hemorrhaging ceased.

If like this woman, you are looking for help in all the wrong places, it’s not too late. She tried everything she knew and when everything failed, she tried Jesus. She found the answer she was looking for. If like this lady, you try Jesus, you will get the answers you are seeking. When everything fails, Jesus doesn’t fail.