Today I read Matthew 9, an account of Jesus healing a paralyzed man, which resulted in the crowd around him praising God. As I contemplated the story I thought about a conversation I had with a student in the tutoring center on Monday. Since it was the first day of class and early in the morning she was the only student who was there. She asked a couple of questions about her math assignment and then she began sharing her story with me.
She said that she had been a good student and an athlete in high school but she became pregnant at age seventeen and had to quit the swim team. She managed to graduate with her class but then had to care for her baby. Her baby’s father was abusive, and has since fathered another child with a different woman, so she has nothing to do with him and has sole custody of her daughter. She has a fifteen year-old sister who is rebelling against her parents and she wants to warn her sister about making the same mistakes that she made but her sister will not listen to her. She is starting back to school after a three-year hiatus and wants to be an example for her daughter. I encouraged her to keep on her current path and told her I was proud of her for pursuing her education.
The paralyzed man in the Bible story couldn’t walk because of his disability but the young woman I spoke with Monday is also paralyzed, unable to move on her intended path because of the circumstances of her life that were generated, in part, by her poor choices. As I listened to her talk I longed to be able to help her to achieve her goals and I longed for her to experience wholeness in her life. In effect, I wanted to be able to heal her from the paralyzing effects of her circumstances.
Sometimes the stories in the Bible are disheartening to me because Jesus solves people’s problems with a simple word and suddenly everyone around is praising God. When I meet people, see their problems, and attempt to enter their lives to help, their problems persist and I find that I am shaking my fist at God, questioning his love, rather than praising him. I want a magic wand that makes things right but usually end up with a wand that stirs up more and more muck. The Bible says that, in the end, things will be made whole but I am too impatient; I want the young woman with whom I spoke to experience it now.
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