Bleeding Woman

Daughter of Faith

(I have always seen the stories of Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman were linked. Was the woman’s bleeding the result of a fistula following the birth of a child to Jairus? Others have speculated about their possible relationship. Whether mother and daughter, or representative of generations, these two females share a story re-enacted through the ages. Women are loved and advocated for. Women suffer and are lost. Jesus sacrifices power for the sake of both.)

At the market by the lake
Many voices pressing in.
I hold my wrap close around
So people cannot see my sin.
Jairus pushes forth and speaks
To the Master in distress.
Perhaps, I too, could talk to him
Or even simply touch his dress?

Immediately, I sense the change
And wonder at the present danger –
He calls me forth to testify
An unclean woman – female stranger.
Daughter! He names me new,
Claiming me as his own kin
Daughter! I become God’s child
Freed from guilt or shame or sin.

Many years ago I bore
A child of God, for whom I lost
All my blood of these twelve years.
She lived still, while I was gone,
For I left seeking healing’s tears.
Yet suffering’s freedom may only come
If true for her – next generation –
And so I pray, not just for me –
But for his daughter’s restoration.

At what point should we cease to seek
the restoration of our place?
Social standards may reject
and turn away from from seeing face.
We cannot recognise what’s human
if ‘standards’ call to make girls less.
So, we leave the suffering ones
To loneliness in their distress.

Community and social grace
Prevents us touching ‘unclean’ skin.
And so a cloak will have to do
To draw me back into God’s kin.
And God would have me in my state,
recognising faith revealed.
But will these people count me in
or is exclusion’s state still sealed?

(The woman with an issue of blood - Mark 5:25-34, Matthew 9:20-22, Luke 8:43-48) 

© 2017, A.Koh-Butler