We’re making our way through a series seeking to help us love the people around us and alongside us, as we love God and ourselves. At the moment we’re exploring things that might help us connect well with others.
Todays Question is “Where does it hurt?”
It’s a question that has some weight to it and not one to be offered lightly.
IN Mark 5:21-28 a women who has been suffering from an medical condition for a considerable time approaches Jesus.
Everyone carries a level of hurt.
Some of the questions we paused to reflect on were :
Where do you hurt ?
What are you living your way through ?
What is your hurt doing to you ? Consolation – movement towards God…or Desolation – away from God ?
These questions may have too much weight to easily discuss as a small group.
An easier question might be – what are the conditions when it’s good to ask the question – where are you hurting ?
what are the conditions when you shouldn’t.
Christians do believe in healing, but we also have to live our way though things.
Read Mark 5;29-34
Jesus heals the woman, but doesn’t just move on. He makes relational time for her.
Amy Kenny writes of her experiences as a christian living with a disability
“God told me to pray for you,” she says. Her words linger like cloying perfume in a claustrophobic space. “God wants to heal you!” She is undoubtedly thrilled with this opportunity. I’ve been here before. It never ends well.
This woman does not know me. She doesn’t have the intimacy that prayer or accountability or sarcasm require. She simply interprets my cane as something that requires “fixing” and ropes God into her ableism, the belief that disabled people are less valuable or less human than our nondisabled counterparts. Internally, I make a swift calculation: endure the prayer to avoid squabble, or call her out on her benevolent eugenics and be branded a heretic again.
Have you had any encounters like this ? What would have made a positive difference ?
Where do we as a community hurt ?
As a country ?
Pray together about this..