Does God Care? The woman with the issue of blood has so much she can teach us about if God cares about us and our lives. Her story highlight’s our heavenly father’s great love for us in an extraordinary way that can reach through time and encourage us even today with a resounding yes. Yes God cares, yes He loves us.
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The Story Of The Woman With The Issue Of Blood
Does God really care? It’s a question many of us have asked in our lifetime and one that the devil likes to try to make us doubt. Does God care about me? The Bible is filled with stories of God’s great love for us and how much He does indeed care and continues to care, despite mistakes, shortcomings, and failures. One of those stories is the story of the woman with the issue of blood in Mark.
Woman With The Issue Of Blood Scripture
We find the story of the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5:21-34, Jesus is on His way to the home of Jairus to heal his daughter. He was an important synagogue leader, an important member of society. He’d come to Jesus begging for Him to come to his house and heal his 12-year-old daughter.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 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. Mark 5:24-29 NIV
Mark immediately drops us into this woman’s story without fanfare, we find a large crowd pressing in on all sides of Jesus as Jairus leads him back to his home. This woman is in the crowd, we don’t know what drew her there that day. We learn that she has had this condition for twelve years and that she was beyond the help of doctors.
She’s spent her last penny, she is beyond human hope, she has nothing left. And yet she knows that if she can just reach Jesus; if she can just touch the edge of his garment she’ll be healed. Perhaps she’s been hearing of the miracles He’s already performed, or perhaps it’s just a feeling.
According to Jewish law, the woman with the issue of blood was ceremonially unclean due to her bleeding issue (you can read more about this in Leviticus 15:25-27). Because she was ceremonially unclean she would not have been permitted to enter the temple. This meant that she couldn’t be a part of their religious ceremonies. Also according to the law, anything or anyone she touched became unclean as well. This was very serious in her time.
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. Mark 5: 30:32
Jesus already knew who had touched Him, He already knew her story, the illness she’d endured. But He looks for her anyway. He seeks her out, His lost lamb.
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 5:32-34
It’s in these final verses of her story that we get to my favorite part of this story of the woman with the issue of blood. If you are familiar with the New Testament you’ve probably recognized that encounters with Jesus tend to be radically life-altering. Throughout His ministry on earth- and even through the Old Testament, we see a pattern of God finding you at your lowest.
This story isn’t the exception, we see this woman with the issue of blood slip from the crowd and falls at Jesus’s feet. Terrified, her whole world has just shifted in an instant. In one fraction of a second, when her fingertips collided with the weave of the fabric- her whole life changed.
Who Was The Woman With The Issue Of Blood?
The woman with the issue of blood is found in Mark and Luke, but in neither story do we learn who this woman is. She is only identified by the issue that made her seek out Jesus.
What Condition Did The Woman With The Issue Of Blood Have?
The Bible doesn’t tell us exactly what is wrong with this woman with the issue of blood, some scholars believe it is menorrhagia; while others hemorrhoids. Either way, due to the fact she was continually bleeding, this woman would have been continually regarded in Jewish law as unclean.
The Woman With The Issue Of Blood In The Bible
Our hearts naturally go out to Him. What decent parent wouldn’t do everything in their power to save their child? We read quickly this story, silently waiting in anticipation for Jesus to hurry to this man’s home and save this little girl. And yet Jesus stops.
You can practically hear His followers echoing through time urging Him on. But Jesus pauses, stopping on the way to such an important appointment. For someone, we might consider a little less important. A nameless woman in a sea faces, urging him on, hurry to this little girl. Hurry so He won’t be too late. Ignore the slight pull on your hem, the little girl needs you. This woman has waited fourteen years, she can wait a little longer.
How often do we urge Him to keep going, to meet our priorities instead of seeking out His? At this moment she was His priority. He was here for this woman only known to us as the woman with the issue of blood. He cared about her. He searched out the outcast, the unwanted one with one last shred of hope lost in a sea of clamoring people looking for His attention.
His priority at this moment is to show the people a deep revelation of himself but to do that He had to upset their priorities. He needed to answer the question deep in this woman with the issue of blood’s heart, does God care. He needed to meet her right here, at this moment. This was her moment, predestined since before she was born.
Lessons From The Woman With The Issue Of Blood
The Bible story of the woman with the issue of blood has so much for us to learn from, to mine gems of knowledge that will encourage us and open our eyes. This story is always one that touches my heart when I read it because I think we get such an amazing glimpse at God’s heart toward us. I think we in one way or another have been in the shoes of this woman, where we’ve exhausted all other options and we know that only Jesus can save us.
Does God Care About My Health?
So often we find ourselves like this woman with the issue of blood, life didn’t go the way we are expecting our health is stolen from us. Leaving us wondering if God cares about our health if He cares about us. This woman had tried everything else, and Jesus was her last resort. She had no other options, no other chances, this was it. And yet, God knew she was there.
God cared about her health, cared that because of her health she had been forced to live in seclusion. Isolated from her family and community. And chose to step in, and meet her here just where she needed Him.
Does God Care About My Pain?
The pain of loneliness, the despair of having no answers, of trying and trying, and yet never being healed. It brought her to this moment on a busy street, she wasn’t asking for his full attention, just for a chance. A chance to be free, free of the pain, free of the loneliness, to be healed, to be restored.
I can’t help but wonder if the question “does God care?” flitted through this woman with the issue of blood mind as she began to extend her arm. Was she frightened as her hand extended to touch the hem of his garment? Was she afraid that nothing would happen? Was she frighted by the fact that this moment, this encounter could change her life forever?
Her hand nears, does she hesitate slightly? Will this change anything? Will I finally be healed? Or does doubts plage her mind as her fingers hover near the edge of the garment. So close and yet so far, what if… But no what if’s hold her back, her fingers stretch forward to touch her last shred of hope. The Bible tells us that as this woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus’s hem she was healed.
In an instant, the woman with the issue of blood was healed.
Does God Care About What I Want?
This woman with the issue of blood in the Bible wanted to be healed, she longed to be restored to health. To find healing and leave behind this ravaging cycle. So she sought Jesus out on this day, at this moment. To her, this was a last desperate attempt to find healing.
Perhaps this was a spur-of-the-moment decision to her, but this meeting, this spot, this moment in time was set in place from the foundations of the earth were set in place. God knew this woman’s name before she was ever born, knew the pain she would endure, but He also knew what this woman could show us.
Does God care what I want? God cared about us so much that He passed through time and eternity to meet us right where we are and meet our every need. To be the answer for the broken places in our hearts and lives. This woman didn’t know that this moment was destined since before she was born. Didn’t know of the hope her story could hold for us.
Characteristic’s Of The Woman With The Issue Of Blood
She could be me, she could be you, she could be any of us, this woman with the issue of blood. We’ve all been in that spot, broken, tired, with nothing left to give and running short on hope- desperate for a miracle. Desperate for Him to breathe new life into us.
Desperate to know if God cares. If God can save us. She was desperate for Him, so she wove her way through the crowd pressing in around Him, needing Him, but convinced she wasn’t worthy of His attention. She was broken, she was unclean. There were greater needs, more important people, who was she to borrow His attention for even a moment.
Does God Care? The Woman With The Issue Of Blood
Like a child eager to be near their parent so they crawl beneath their desk just to be near, she slipped up behind Him and gently touched the very edge of his cloak- and suddenly he turned. Frightened she tried to melt back into the crowd, but He searched her out until she fell at His feet.
Trembling, unworthy to have his full attention, not important enough for Him to stop on His way to save the little girl. Feeling the eyes of all those around her, the woman with the issue of blood tells Jesus her story. I wish I could see the look in His eyes as they fell on her. The love that would be there.
Only He knows where to find us, only God knows where to break through to meet us. He had to stop for this woman with the issue of bleeding in the Bible, for you, and me. Like Peter in the crowd, like Jacob in the wilderness, He had to seek her out. To find her in the midst of her pain. The midst of her sorrow, in the midst of her broken story to write a new ending.
It wasn’t that He didn’t already know who had touched Him, but He needed to meet her in her private wasteland. This woman needed more than physical healing, her issues went far deeper than the illness that made her unclean, which made her an outcast in her community. He needed to touch her soul, He needed to peel back the calloused places that the years had hardened.
To needed to answer the question, does God care? Yes, yes I do care. I have cared about every detail of your life, I care about your dreams, your wants, your health, your pain. I care for you. I am here for you. I stopped everything, just to meet you right here where you are at your lowest point. Like so many other women in the Bible we get such an amazing look at who God is in this moment.
Can you see her? This woman with the issue of blood the moment that she dared to lift her eyes to His, terrified of what she might see- and finding only love as He called her daughter. The realization as she recognizes her healing.
Does God Care About Me?
You don’t look for something that is worthless, you don’t stop everything to seek it out if it’s not important. The world called her unimportant, He called her so important, that He stopped in the middle of the street to find her. He stopped on the way to something important to search her out, to meet her in the middle of her need. To tell her she was priceless. He stopped for her. To heal. To restore. To save. To wash away the years of sorrow and suffering. He’s stopped for you too.
He stopped everything and went to the cross so that He could step through time and eternity to meet you right where you are. To restore what has been lost, to break through the things keeping you isolated, to heal what is broken in our hearts and lives. We may not know who this woman was, but in some small way, she is all of us.
Are you like this nameless woman with the issue of blood in the dusty ancient streets of the new testament desperate for Him? Desperate to know the answer like this woman, does God care? But scared to step out of the crowd and get His attention. Longing for Him, but scared of rejection yet again?
Sister, don’t be frightened, He’s here in this moment for you. Draw close and touch the edge of His garment, you already have His full attention. Step into His presence and let Him restore what has been lost.
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Amen!
I just found your site and just joined. Have been looking at a lot of the articles and I love this site already. Thank you for your hard work.
This has helped me a lot especially when preparing for the sermon . May God bless you as you continue interpreting to the people.
So glad to hear that! Thank you!
Hello Gatune, We are so glad that our words have helped you with your sermons. Where is your ministry? We would love to hear more about it. God bless you too my friend.