About Me

Van Walton

Fun Facts about Van Walton

My favorite smell: The way the earth smells after it rains.

My favorite sound: The first notes of a grand symphony.

My favorite way to relax: Sitting anywhere outside - on my front porch, on my deck, or by the lake, early in the morning with my first cup of coffee.

My favorite birthday dessert: a Peach cobbler baked by my husband. He’s my fave chef!

I will not eat: Avocado. They turn my stomach into a volcano that never erupts.

Technology I couldn't live without and why: My laptop - it takes me anywhere I want to go.

One thing that makes me smile: My sons' faces!

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My Resources



My book, From the Pound to the Palace, is available for $10
from Proverbs 31 Ministries.


Pound to Palace


My book, Little Halos, is available for $5.99 from Proverbs
31 Ministries.


Little Halos


Proverbs 31 Ministries












Links




Sponsor a Child in Jesus Name with Compassion

Monday, March 30, 2009

MOVIN' ON AFTER MOVIN' IN MONDAYS

THE WOMAN MOVING TOWARD HIS HEM:

Moving from total rejection to transforming recognition

“As Jesus went…, he was surrounded by the crowds. And there was a woman in the crowd who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years. She had spent everything she had on doctors and still could find no cure. She came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of his robe. Immediately, the bleeding stopped.


‘Who touched me?’ Jesus asked.


Everyone denied it, and Peter said, ‘Master, this whole crowd is pressing up against you.’


But Jesus told him, ‘No, someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.’ When the woman realized that Jesus knew, she began to tremble and fell to her knees before him. The whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and that she had been immediately healed. ‘Daughter,’ he said to her, ‘your faith has made you well. Go in peace.’ " (Luke 8:42-48)


John Garr in his book, THE HEM OF HIS GARMENT writes the story so a contemporary reader might better understand the bleeding woman’s trial.

“As he went his way, teaching and touching the lives of those who came to him, one of those who had heard of his reputation for compassion and of his power to mend broken, diseased bodies and wounded, troubled souls was a woman with a life threatening condition. We cannot be certain about the details of this story, but we can imagine, based on what is recorded, that her condition was grave. Frail, emaciated, anemic, she was but a shell of her former vivacious ebullient self. Her youthful beauty had dissolved into the haggard look of weakness. Her ashen face was punctuated by the thin lips and the clenched jaw of a determination to survive. She was desperate. ‘If I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole,’ she said to herself.

The poor woman had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, probably with menorrhea, a condition that rendered her both physically weak and psychologically depressed because her malady made her perpetually unclean according to the ceremonial laws of divorce as ‘unfit for cohabitation.’ If she even touched other people, they contracted tumiah (“ritual impurity”) and would continue to communicate her ‘uncleanness’ to others unless they immersed in a mikvah and waited until evening to be pronounced ‘clean’ again. How embarrassing! In such desperation, these words of hope echoed like a chant, rising like a crescendo in her troubled mind: ‘If I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole.’

Trying to find a cure for her condition, she had spent all of her resources on physicians and had only grown worse, perhaps even the victim of medical malpractice or ineptitude. Now, here she was, a poverty stricken, emotionally-wrecked, physically-broken waif, possessing only one faint hope of deliverance from certain death: ‘ If I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole!’ she repeated to herself.”

Can you feel her desperate condition? I can. I have searched high and low for doctors to fix life-threatening conditions that caused me and my loved ones great anxiety and destabilizing fear. In fact, I have taken extreme measures to get the attention of doctors, so much so that the medical community resorted to ‘disciplining’ me! Imagine the hopeless feeling. What happens when even those who are sworn to take every precaution necessary to keep you healthy and alive, what traumatic scar results when those in highest esteem reject and scoff? I can tell you because I have sat forlorn, incredulous, and inconsolable in the ‘hot seat’. Although haggard and despairing due to extreme exhaustion, I determined to risk everything, even my reputation, in order to find healing.

The heroine in this New Testament story moved beyond the norms of her day. Knowing her place in society, she ignored protocol. She risked discipline. She had nothing to lose.

John Garr continues his version of the story. “So, defying all social convention, she mustered up the last reserves of her strength and pressed her way through the multitude that was thronging the Rabbi, hanging on his every word, and reacting to his every gesture. How she made her way through the crowd, no one knows, but in her heart of hearts she just knew, ‘If I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole!’ She didn’t need a word; she needed a touch. And touch him she did. In one desperate lunge, she reached out her bony, near lifeless hand and brushed against just the hem of Jesus’ garment. The fact that she touched just the hem of his garment may be an indication that she was crawling through the thronged, huddled bodies. A miracle happened; immediately her hemorrhaging stopped. She was made whole!”

Mr. Garr’s description moves me to live a life “lunged” toward my Lord and Savior, the Healer. The move of my life has thrown me to my knees and there I have remained wondering, “Is this the move that will change everything?”

And being the great Shepherd that He is, He was not far. “…seek, and you will find…” (Matthew 7:7 NASB) Jesus invites me to move toward Him. He shined His Light on the woman at His hem. “She reached out her bony, near lifeless hand and brushed” my soul when I read her story. “Lean,” I heard her say. “Lunge, if you have to, move toward The Savior.”

Are you willing to move wherever necessary to touch the Hem of His Garment? Where is your move taking you?

6 comments:

B His Girl said...

Thank you for your sweet comment about seeing a turtle and thinking of me. One of my older turtle posts was on my mind today. In that post, through a real turtle God told me it was 'my move'. He was waiting on me. It was so powerful how the events unfolded. Here is the link if you get a chance to see it.
http://bhisgirl.blogspot.com/2008/07/turtle-tuesdays-stories-from-turtle_28.html
Reading your post reminded me of it again. The woman was within reach of healing. She had to stretch out her hand and make contact with Jesus' hem. I wonder how close we are to something that magnifies our Lord but we just hang back in the crowd, living without His best for us. This turtle girl is moving and stretching. I know you are too. It's time Van to go forward in the new things God is calling you to do. B

Amrita said...

Thank you for visiting my blog Van. Oh yes technology when used positively can bring people together and create such wonders.

Pam said...

Hey Van, I love this article. I feel that is what I have done is lunged, and He has thrown me right into the middle of the Pro Life movement! Thanks for visiting my blog. When I saw Van, I thought it was a guy!! That would be just fine, but I loved your commentary on your name! I wanted to say also, that it feels like I have to keep lunging towards Jesus more and more!! Love, Pam

Kim said...

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog the other day!

Your entry, reminded me of our church service on Sunday - the "simplicity" of just seeking after Christ! Yet, how much we turn to other things first.

Julie Zine Coleman said...

The woman knew Jesus was her only hope because she had tried everything else. Doctor after doctor, strange medicines and treatments had left her emotionally and financially destitute.

So often I find myself having to exhaust all other means before I am willing to plunk down at Jesus' feet. Getting published is like that-- I keep reading articles about building a platform and marketing yourself to make yourself attractive to publishers. Then I start to believe that it is all on my shoulders and I will never get it done. It is when I have scurried around for a while getting nowhere that I finally give up human effort and remember to rest on the Lord-- His timing, His work.

This post was a good reminder to me of the cycle I keep getting caught up in. Thanks for helping keep my focus where it belongs!

Joyful said...

Van, I don't know what you have gone through, but tears have filled my eyes. Reading your posts, I am walking such a similar journey.

"Can you feel her desperate condition?" YES! "I have searched high and low for doctors to fix life-threatening conditions that caused me and my loved ones great anxiety and destabilizing fear. In fact, I have taken extreme measures to get the attention of doctors, so much so that the medical community resorted to ‘disciplining’ me! Imagine the hopeless feeling. What happens when even those who are sworn to take every precaution necessary to keep you healthy and alive, what traumatic scar results when those in highest esteem reject and scoff? I can tell you because I have sat forlorn, incredulous, and inconsolable in the ‘hot seat’. Although haggard and despairing due to extreme exhaustion, I determined to risk everything, even my reputation, in order to find healing." VAN, THAT'S WHERE MY FAMILY IS TODAY!!!

Yesterday, 2 meetings were held at the hospital. This is my journey. I am reaching out with everything in me to touch the hem of His garment. I am in that place where I don't need a word, I need a touch.

"The move of my life has thrown me to my knees and there I have remained wondering, “Is this the move that will change everything?”
Van, every day I hold onto hope that maybe...just maybe...today will be the day of change.

Only enough strength to crawl to His hem, but I'm there,
Joy