The Mystery of Slow Miracles

“And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, ‘If I touch even His garments, I shall be made well.’ And immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.” - Mark 5:25-29

I know COUNTLESS Catholic women who most identify with the “woman at the well” from scripture. But  I most identify with the hemorrhaging woman. Over the years of my life, I’ve seen myself in her for various reasons. For a long time, the main reason was because she approaches Jesus from behind – I always pictured her crawling on the ground, too – and does not want to bother Him or interrupt Him. Recently, however, I read this scripture’s analog in the Gospel of Luke with my small group and I began to see myself as this woman for another reason: she had “suffered much” and “grew worse” for twelve years.

When my small group read this passage, the women in my group lamented about how the hemorrhaging woman was “immediately healed”, and yet their own wounds have not seen the same miracle. I noted how quickly they had skipped over the part where she suffered for twelve years before Jesus healed her!

I struggled and suffered from a masturbation addiction for eighteen years. Go ahead, take a second to do the math, and think about what was twelve or eighteen years ago today, and how old you’ll be in twelve or eighteen years. It’s near unfathomable.

And on the surface, it may appear like I was “immediately healed” almost four years ago. I went to confession, confessed my sexual sin, and have been “sober” (so to speak) since then.

Was I absolved immediately? Yes. But was I “healed” immediately? No. And so the real gift has been the slow miracle that has continued over the last four years.

“And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to Him a blind man, and begged Him to touch him. And He took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the village; and when He had spit on his eyes and laid His hands upon him, He asked him, ‘Do you see anything?’ And he looked up and said, ‘I see men; but they look like trees, walking.’ Then again He laid His hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and saw everything clearly.” - Mark 8:22-25

CS Lewis once said, “A slow miracle is no easier to perform than an instant one.”

Why does the Lord take His time? Why does He allow us to wait in our woundedness, in our longing, in our brokenness?

I think it is a gift. It is a beautiful gift to wait, to go slowly. This, I believe, is for two reasons. One is for our own sanity. Think of ways that you have been healed, that you have grown, that you have changed over the last five years, either internally or externally. Now, imagine if you went from the person you were then to the person you are now overnight. A little jarring, don’t you think? That would personally take me from secretly and ashamedly addicted to masturbation, to publicly speaking about it in a women’s ministry. I definitely did not – and would not want to – arrive here overnight.

Of course, it’s easy to look back at the waiting and be grateful. But while you’re in the midst of it, when you don’t know when it will end, it can feel like a perpetual Holy Saturday. It’s an undeniably heavy cross to heal slowly. But it’s by slow healing that the Lord can change us more intimately, more fully, and more thoroughly because His slow miracles require our cooperation. We must let Him take us by the hand and lead us out of the village and trust whatever He does next.

In the last four years, the Lord has healed me much more deeply than just sobriety from sexual sin. He has reordered my longing for relationship, placing my desire for Him at the top where it ought to be. He has restored the way I view men. He has renewed and strengthened my ability to live chastely. He has done all of this and so much more.

Because the other reason slow miracles are a gift is for the greater glory of the Lord our God, and a deeper relationship with Him. 

I could try and fail to explain why this is, or I could refer you all to my favorite poem (and the theme of my life) by Russell Kelfer.

“Wait”

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried;

Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied.

I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate . . .

And the Master so gently said, "Wait."

"Wait? You say wait?" my indignant reply.

"Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!

Is Your hand shortened? Or have You not heard?

By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming Your Word.

"My future and all to which I relate

Hangs in the balance, and You tell me to wait?

I'm needing a 'yes', a go-ahead sign,

Or even a 'no' to which I can resign.

"You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe,

We need but to ask, and we shall receive.

And Lord I've been asking, and this is my cry:

I'm weary of asking! I need a reply."

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate,

As my Master replied again, "Wait."

So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,

And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting for what?"

He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine . . .

and He tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.

I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.

I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.

"I could give all you seek and pleased you would be.

You'd have what you want, but you wouldn't know Me.

You'd not know the depth of my love for each saint.

You'd not know the power that I give to the faint.

"You'd not learn to see through clouds of despair;

You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there.

You'd not know the joy of resting in Me

When darkness and silence are all you can see.

"You'd never experience the fullness of love

When the peace of My spirit descends like a dove.

You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,

But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My Heart.

"The glow of My comfort late into the night,

The faith that I give when you walk without sight.

The depth that's beyond getting just what you ask

From an infinite God who makes what you have last.

"You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,

What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.

Yes, your dearest dreams overnight would come true,

But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I'm doing in you.

"So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see

That the greatest of gifts is to truly know Me.

And though oft My answers seem terribly late,

My most precious answer of all is still . . . Wait."