Dumb mosquito. It bit me, and a week later I was flat on my back. My temperature shot up to 104 degrees. An ice pick stabbed my skull. My bones hurt; my skin hurt. Sweat poured off me as I shivered with cold. For eight days I lay in bed—dehydrated, feverish, pain competing with nausea. That dumb mosquito had given me dengue fever. 

All that long week I thought about the hemorrhaging woman in the Bible. She had bled for 12 years. Her life’s savings had bled away in search of a cure. “When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed’” (Mark 5:27,28). If I’d been anywhere near Jesus’ cloak, I likely would have ripped the hem right off in desperation. 

Can you relate? Maybe your health or your marriage is bleeding away. Maybe you feel like a social leper. Maybe you feel ugly on the inside and out. Satan’s sting has convinced you that you are unloved, untouchable, unwelcome. You are desperate for healing. Where can you turn? 

Like that woman, seek out Jesus. Find him in the Bible. Like that woman, don’t just touch his cloak—grab on to his reputation. Jesus the Promise Maker is also a Promise Keeper. He has taken a world of untouchables and healed us: by loving us, dying for us, forgiving us, and—at just the right time—welcoming us to his heavenly home.