lent #3

i don’t understand him sometimes.
when there are things to do, places to go.
i don’t understand why he stops.
i question his sense of urgency.
i doubt he knows what’s important.

“who touched me,” he asks.
“everyone is touching you,” i say.

and everything halts to a stop.
bewilderment. confusion. frustration.
there are urgent things to tend to.
why do we have to wait.

“Daughter.”
She needed him to stop.
And if he wouldn’t stop, she still needed him.
And he stopped for her.
She was worth stopping for.
“you believed, and now you are well.”

in the rush and tumble through life
pressed and pushed by the incessant crowds
i do not see what He sees
i am not touched by Him.
there’s still healing to be done.
to hear him say

“go in peace.”

— — — —

based on Luke 8:45, I picked up on Peter’s reply to Jesus, “Everyone is touching you.” And I imagined what he may have been feeling at the time. And how very often, I feel the same way. There’s the old adage, “Stop and smell the roses,” as in appreciate the beautiful along the way, or you’ll miss out on it. I guess when I was reading the passage, I was reminded that far too often I have pushed Jesus out of the way, and in doing so, missed out on the miraculous. For me, the lines that resonate the most personally, are “i do not see what He sees, i am not touched by Him.” It seems far too often, that that is the refrain in my life. Am I desperate enough to seek him out in a crowd, so that I can hear him say, “Go in peace”?