In a Crowd all Alone

Being in a crowd and yet all alone.  Squeezing through the doors of a jam packed train on the tube.  Walking the streets of a city and no one says hello.  Sitting in a park and watching couples sharing romantic moments and a picnic.  Families play games.  The solitary soul goes unnoticed. 

There are times when this kind of isolation is welcome.  We want to be on our own watching the world go by.  We relish the opportunity to observe people in the ordinariness of their lives.  But to be alone in the crowd and not to choose it is an intense and painful loneliness.  Worse yet is to be surrounded by love and yet enveloped in a cloud that obscures this reality from us.   

She was only one in the crowd (Mark 5:24-34).  Her health spent.  Her bank account emptied paying doctors for cures that never came.  Nobody wanted to be around her because of the social stigma of her condition.

She was only one in the crowd and had her eye on the only person who mattered.  He was her only hope of healing.  Jesus.  She knew if she could brush his cloths she would be well.

She touched him.  He noticed.  Power had gone out from him.  He looked at the crowd and searched for the one who had tugged at his garments.

She was afraid.  Her touch made people unclean.  Would he be angry?  She wished she could melt away.  But she could feel wholeness creeping over her body and so stepped forward to be identified.  She collapsed at his feet, her body shaking.  She blurted out what had happened. 

He spoke.  She listened.  He did not scold.  “Daughter.”  She belonged.  Her faith in pursuing Jesus had made her better and now he blessed her with peace.   

Prayer:  Give me the faith to reach out and touch you.  Give me the courage to step out of the anonymity of the crowd and all alone, fall before you.  Hear me as I blurt out my story.  Call me daughter...call me son.  Give me wholeness.  Grant me peace.  Amen.