MONDAY, March 9
He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease… He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age).
— Mark 5:34, 41-42a
I don’t know about you, but God’s timing is always much too slow for me. I am a quickthinking, decisive person, and I need God ASAP. I worked in entertainment advertising for twenty years, and everything had to happen instantly. Our deadlines were tight and non-negotiable. While I was working for those twenty years, I was begging God, “Please let me be a nun. I know I am called to it. Why can’t I do it NOW?” I had to be out of debt to enter a Convent, and it seemed like it was taking forever. I wasn’t sure if God would ever answer my prayers. When I entered the Convent in 2012, I was 46 years old. In the years since I have been in community, I have realized that all the skills I learned in advertising were exactly the skills I needed to proclaim the Gospel to the world.
Today’s Gospel passage gives us useful insight into God’s timing. The two healing stories contain parallels. Jesus heals a woman who has been hemorrhaging for twelve years, and he heals a young girl who is twelve years old. They are both daughters. The young girl is the daughter of a synagogue leader, and the woman is referred to by Jesus as “daughter.”
Jesus shows no partiality to either the daughter of a prominent authority figure or an outcast “unclean” woman who violates protocol to obtain access to Jesus’ miraculous powers. Both are equal in God’s sight, so Jesus lingers to speak with the woman who touches his cloak and seems to be wasting valuable time as the synagogue official’s child lies dying. Just as in the story of Lazarus from the Gospel of John, he is portrayed as waiting too long, allowing someone to die. And yet, in God’s perfect timing, Jesus takes the hand of the girl and heals her.
God is all-powerful: no matter how dire the situation is, it is never too late. Healing and transformation can take place at any stage of the human journey. God can heal by restoring us to this life or by bringing us into eternal life, and God’s timing is always perfectly aligned with God’s plan.
Reflect: Have you ever known a person who was healed or transformed after it seemed too late for them? Think about God’s timing in your own life. Have there been situations when, in retrospect, God’s timing turned out to be just what you needed?
This Lenten Meditation can be found at Episcopal Relief and Development
