Read Luke 7:18-23
In Spring of 2000, when I was 7 years old, I was diagnosed with type 1 “juvenile” diabetes. All the signs were there: I was too thin and getting thinner even though I was eating and drinking everything in sight. I made my family stop at least ten times for the bathroom on our annual 6 hour road trip from Minneapolis to Milwaukee, extending our trip by hours. I didn’t enjoy performing in the church musical because I felt “sludgy” and sick. It was obvious to my mom, and the doctor agreed. My parents took me to Minneapolis Children’s Hospital almost daily in the weeks following my diagnosis to learn my new way of life: finger pokes and insulin shots.
For so long, doctors, nurses, and nearly every article someone cut out to save for me promised a cure that was “just around the corner.” Even the best medical advancements are still often painful, expensive, and not a cure. You might know what it’s like for you or someone you love to receive an awful diagnosis and to pray for God to just take it away. Or you’ve wished desperately for restoration for a relationship or freedom from addiction, loneliness, depression. . .
Wouldn’t it be amazing to live in Jesus’ time and hear about a man who was actually healing people right and left? To be able to touch His cloak and receive healing and restoration? To know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man, Jesus, is your God and King made man to save us from evil and pain, to make everything right and all things new?
As I read this passage and write this, I pray that God will help my unbelief, show me that He truly is the King I long for, and teach me to trust in Him for healing and restoration. How we long for justice, comfort, restoration, and healing in our world today. How we long, during advent, for King Jesus, who heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, raises the dead, and proclaims good news to the poor!
For Personal Reflection: If you could “reach out to Jesus” to have one piece of your life transformed, what would it be? Pray for that transformation today with humility, confidence and hope!
by Isabelle Lundstrom
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