WEEK 2: Through The Crowds

1 in 7 billion people. How is it possible that our God can hear us? In this week's episode we discuss the likelihood of our Father hearing our cries. (hint: it's 100%)

If you read last week's, you'll know that I had no ideas when writing this series. I knew I wanted to write about Job's story, but I also knew I needed to sneak this one in too. 
When we talk about being confident in the Lord hearing our cries, there's no better story to resonate with than the story of the woman being healed in Luke 8. 
If you've never heard of it, go ahead and read it here:
Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. 41Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house 42because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.
As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,8:43 Many manuscripts years, and she had spent all she had on doctors but no one could heal her. 44She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.
45  “Who touched me?”Jesus asked.
When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”
46But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
47Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

One of the many things that I believe came out of the pandemic was putting into reality the scope of our population as a country and as a world. I remember when we had hit 1,000 people who had passed away and a thousand seemed like such a weird number. It was hard for many people to put into reality how many people 1,000 was. As the months went on and we started hitting new milestones: 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 and finally 1,000,000 cases, it began to feel incredibly surreal. 

There's this idea called sonder. It's a fairly new word and was coined originally by John Koenig who wrote a book called Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows that attempts to put word to emotions that lack a name. 'Sonder' is described as "the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it". It's a pretty surreal feeling when you actually begin to sit in it (and many people don't). 

When I think of the epitome of the Gospel and of this story and of the reality of Micah 7:7: it rests in sonder. The woman in this story touched Jesus thinking that He could never see her as someone important enough to stop for, and despite that, His cloak could heal her through the power of God. Jesus, in this story, reveals His perfect love when He not only stops to notice her, but stops to call her 'daughter'. Throughout the pandemic, I think it's become harder and harder to rest in sonder because it brings to light the overwhelming reality not only of the amount of people we've lost over the past 2 years but the amount of memories, laughs, cries, and persons we've lost. It's a lot to take in. However, how sweet and gracious it is to have a Father and a Savior whose mission is to live in constant sonder: to see each life as intricate, complex, and worthy of love and healing when we can't seem to believe that about ourselves and about others. (others especially) When it becomes hard for us to understand why Jesus would stop for the woman grabbing at His cloak, let us be reminded that they are just as in need of a Savior as we are. We live in a world of 7 billion people, yet we serve a Father willing and ready to hear every single cry, to comfort our aching hearts, and to reveal the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ over and over again until we meet again. 

​Our God will hear us.