Our writing assignment last week was to take a familiar story and write it from a different perspective. I struggled the whole week to come up with something, but eventually settled on the following. See Luke 8:40-56 for the inerrant version.

What was it like to be healthy, to be whole, to be accepted into society, to be clean? Mahlah could not remember anymore, it had been so long. The flow of blood that started twelve years ago had changed everything. She’d spent all that she had on physicians. They took her money and gave her medicines, but nothing changed. Friends and family gradually began to stay away, as if being with her would transfer her condition to them. Mahlah did not understand why the good God had appointed her to bear this affliction, but she knew He was a faithful God. She cried out to Him day and night to come and heal her, to lift this curse from her. At times, it was hard not to sink into despair, but the psalms were her comfort and hope. “Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!” So she waited in hope.

The year Mahlah’s affliction began, Jairus and his wife had a child after many long years of waiting. Mahlah rejoiced with the rest of their village as the new parents showed off their tiny daughter, the only child that was given to them as it turned out. Mahlah felt that in some strange way their lives were bound together, as from a distance she watched the girl, Tabitha, growing up. “Tabitha is four years old now and I have been four years in this wilderness,” she would say to herself. Seeing the girl full of health and vitality was somehow a balm to her own soul. And in this way twelve years had gone by.

A multitude had gathered this day because Jesus had returned. Mahlah had heard of Jesus – who had not? There were stories of him performing miracles of healing. Many speculated that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the promised One! Others were saying he was from the devil, but Mahlah had thought, “Why would the devil bring healing?” Normally Mahlah would stay on the fringes of any crowd, fearful of being recognized as unclean and sent away. But today her heart was lifted up in hope; she believed this man Jesus could heal her and she was determined to ask him.

Before she could make her way to him, a voice rang out, a voice of desperation. Even from where she was, Mahlah saw Jairus sink at Jesus’s feet. The crowd fell silent as Jairus begged Jesus to come to his house where his daughter was dying. Tabitha, dying! It cannot be! Mahlah was stunned by this news and watched as Jesus began to make his way to the house of Jairus. Mahlah could hardly see him now as the crowd hemmed him in on every side. “I will not stop him from going to Tabitha,” thought Mahlah, “It is enough if I can touch the hem of his garment as he goes by.” She pushed her way through to his side and while she still had the courage, she touched his robe at the very edge. Immediately she knew her flow of blood stopped; she had been made whole. With joy, she turned to push her way out of the crowd.

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked. Mahlah wanted to hide. “Somebody touched me, for I perceived power going out from me,” he continued and as he scanned the crowd, he caught her eye. For a moment, it was as if they were the only two people there. He knew it was her and she could see that there was no hiding from him, as if anyone could. She trembled and fell down before him, telling him why she had touched him and how she had been healed.

“Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace,” Jesus said. Just as Mahlah was marveling at this tremendous blessing, this gift of love, someone came to Jairus to tell him not to trouble the Teacher any longer, for his daughter was dead. Mahlah felt all her joy bleed back into sorrow as she thought of the delay she had caused Jesus. At that moment she would have gladly traded her healing to give Tabitha back her life. She looked back up into Jesus’s eyes, but his focus now was on Jairus.

“Do not be afraid,” he told Jairus, “only believe, and she will be made well.” With that Jesus resumed his walk toward Jairus’s house, the crowd still following. But Mahlah had heard everything she needed to hear. She did not need to follow the crowd to know that she would see Tabitha again, alive, whole and happy. Mahlah’s twelve years of affliction had ended, and Tabitha’s twelve years of life would be made new.

I’ll probably procrastinate and struggle to delete this in the morning.