A large crowd followed and pressed around [Jesus]. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
--Mark 5:24b-34
Twenty-one years old.
MRI showed "suspicious node" on the thyroid.
Months pass in ambiguity.
Surgery.
Diagnosed with cancer.
Surgery again.
Thyroid levels were supposed to drop.
They didn't.
Third surgery.
Radioactive Iodine treatment.
"Here. Don't touch these pills, but swallow them."
Countless scans.
Finally?
Finally.
Cured.
I remember going through my cancer journey and thinking often of the woman from the above Gospel passage. I had prayed so often that it hurt, begging for healing. Why was that nameless woman's faith enough to heal her, but my faith wasn't enough for my healing?
Years later, after having received the "all clear" from cancer, I'm still thinking about that woman. No longer am I struggling through a cancer diagnosis. Instead, I've been contemplating the nature of another illness.
Bipolar II Disorder has colored my every moment for years now. Even at a "baseline" mood, when I'm neither in the peak of mania nor in the pit of depression, I still somehow have my condition in mind. I'm constantly waiting and watching for the next mood swing, praying that the next one "isn't too bad."
My journey with Bipolar Disorder has been very different from my cancer journey. It's easy to outline steps that were taken, easy to think through the chronological progression toward healing. And then there was a definitive "healed" announcement. I knew when there were no longer any cancer cells present. Bipolar has not been so linear.
In new ways, I've recently considered the bleeding woman. I'm jealous of her all over again. Twelve agonizing years were brought to an end in a simple, faith-filled touch. Oh how I wish there was a hem of a garment passing by to heal my troubled mind! How I desire the brush of fabric under my fingertips to bring a cure to years of traumatic loss stemming from my mental health being "too much" for those around me! How I long and ache for healing...
I'm going to be rawly honest with you, dear reader. I'm angry at the healing of the bleeding woman. What made her so special and me so un-special? Why is her faith better than mine? Why does she get to experience a miraculous healing when I am told that I must merely learn to "manage" rather than seek a "cure?"
I try to spiritualize this story. I tell myself that it isn't about the physical healing so much as the signpost pointing toward the wholeness that the Reign of God is all about. But I know better. For the bleeding woman, this story is all about the physical truth of healing. For her, the point is twelve years ending in restored health.
So for now, I sit waiting amidst my own years of throwing money at doctors and prescriptions and therapists and collecting coping skills. For now, I wait knowing that this is not what God intends for me. The suffering of a troubled mind is not the whole story of what God wants of my life.
But maybe, just maybe, my story will serve others the way this woman's story has served me. Perhaps my story will be a signpost toward what contact with the Divine can do. Maybe someday I'll be able to tell you what my "twelve years" has taught me. In the meantime, I wait and listen and watch. I continue to reach out my hand toward passing garments, praying that someday I hear that my faith has made me well.
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