touch

Opening Prayer: O Lord Jesus, my life is such a mess without your healing touch.  Come to me this day and touch me in my deepest places, that I may receive the healing and the wholeness and the peace that only your touch can give.  Amen.

Scripture: Mark 1:40-45

Journal: How are you like the leper?  How and where are you waiting for God’s healing touch in your life or heart?

Reflection: 

                                                a leper’s lament

I roam the countryside, fully knowing the ugliness of my affliction, fully feeling the brunt of it each moment of each day.  Mine is a lonely and tortured existence.  What others see on the outside is only the tip of the iceberg compared to the pain and the hurt and the brokenness that lies within.  They see the leprosy, but I see the hopelessness.  I see the debris from the wreckage of feeling totally worthless.  I know the bottomless depths of my self-contempt, and I am helpless to do anything about it.  Oh, I’ve tried and tried, but all has failed to offer a solution for my inner and outer turmoil.  I cannot cleanse—nor heal—myself, so I roam about, desperately seeking healing, or relief, or the faintest glimmer of hope, wherever I might find it.  Hope that somehow, some way, someone—anyone—might help me make some sense of this mess of a life I am trapped inside of.  “Have mercy!” is the constant cry of my soul.  Please, help!  Anyone!  O Jesus, Master, Son of David, can you help me!  O please, Great Physician, have mercy on me and heal my affliction!  For only you can offer the healing and the wholeness I so desperately need.  Will you?

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, only when we recognize the depths of our need for you, can we ever begin to comprehend the depths of your love for us.  Come, Lord Jesus, and touch our lives.  Amen.