We so easily doubt our worth. Advertising campaigns intentionally try to make us feel we’ll 
be of greater value if we look a certain way or own a certain item. We can’t help soaking in these messages; it is the most powerful marketing strategy around. We fall prey to this thinking even without advertising, though. We compare ourselves to men or women who seem to be “better” than we are and feel we must change to measure up. We decide we are not good enough, not worthy enough, not significant enough. We feel as if we are on the outside, looking in at all those who are prettier, thinner, richer, more accomplished, more confident…more acceptable. Our sense of rejection is like a secretly bleeding wound – draining the life out of us.
Have you ever felt like the hemorrhaging woman described in Mark 5:24-34? She’d been an outcast for 12 long years, literally shut out of the lives of those who measured up to the standards of the day. She couldn’t even walk down the street without people crossing to the other side. Recognizing what life must have been like for her helps reveals the desperation it took for her to seek out Jesus in the crowd. The people around Him must have moved aside, repulsed by her presence.
Sadly, we do the same thing today– we advert our eyes from the homeless man on the corner and we dodge the socially awkward woman at the office or (even) at church! Like junior high students, we continue to think we will lose our own “acceptable” status if we hang out with “uncool” people.
Jesus reacted to the woman in a different way. Like a movie star surrounded by fans and paparazzi, He was pressed on all sides by people. In the midst of all the jostling, He felt the power go out of Him and He stopped to search for the woman who touched him. He could have just kept going – after all, He was on an important errand for important people and she was already healed, so why stop?
Jesus knew her real pain was not the bleeding, but the pain of rejection. So He looked all the way into her heart and called her “daughter”. The love and acceptance in His eyes at that moment must have been overwhelming for a woman who had experienced so much rejection.
I recently shared a message with a handful of women in the Dallas County jail who have known rejection their entire lives. The very people who were supposed to nurture and accept these women have called them unclean, unworthy of love, unacceptable… and caused them to bleed, spiritually and emotionally, without stopping. Their desperate search for acceptance and significance led them to the choices that landed them in jail, where a program called Project Matthew (http://www.projectmatthew.org ) is bringing them the healing they need by seeing them as worthy, beautiful daughters of God.
It doesn’t matter what the world says about our value – Jesus calls us “daughter.” He looks into our hearts and sees us as beloved, belonging, significant. Won’t you go to the trouble of seeking Him? Draw close enough that you can fall down before him and tell him your whole truth. Only then can you truly see his gaze and start believing what HE says about your value.
Mark 5:22-34 (NKJV)
22 And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet 23 and begged Him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live.” 24 So Jesus went with him, and a great multitude followed Him and thronged Him.
25 Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, 26 and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. 28 For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.”
29 Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. 30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My clothes?”
31 But His disciples said to Him, “You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’”
32 And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. 33 But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. 34 And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”
