Yes, it’s me again, everybody — I’m your host, Wanda Thibodeaux, and you’re listening to Faithful on the Clock, the podcast for Christian professionals where all the dandelion seeds float into the air to get your faith and work aligned. Today, I’m wondering if you’ve ever needed something — maybe a cup of coffee, a place to live…someone to finally see who you are. As workers, we can focus on being gritty and independent so much that we don’t always feel comfortable asking for what could help. But today, we’re focusing on the woman with the hemorrhage to learn how to respond well even to the quiet asks we might encounter. Let’s jump in.

Out of all the miracle stories that are in scripture, the one that I hold the closest to my heart is the story of the woman with the hemorrhage. Hopefully, by the time we’re done here today, it’ll be a favorite for you, too. But just to recap it a little bit, when we enter the scene, Jesus has just crossed back over the Sea of Galilee after healing a man who had been possessed by a legion of demons. So, now He’s back on the west side, probably somewhere near Capernaum. And not surprisingly, a crowd comes and wants to follow Him around. And as they’re there, this guy named Jairus comes to Jesus. His daughter, she’s like only 12, and she’s super sick. And Jairus is so afraid his daughter is going to die that he asks Jesus to come and heal her. So, Jesus agrees to go with Jairus to his house. But the crowd doesn’t make this a super fast journey, OK? And this woman sees Jesus as He’s on His way to heal this kid. And Matthew’s account of her is pretty brief. He basically just says, she’s been bleeding for twelve years. Not days, not months, but years. And she comes, touches the hem of Jesus’ cloak, she’s healed, and Jesus notes her faith and tells her to go in peace.

[1:56]

[4:27]

But she touches Jesus’ robe, and she’s instantly healed. He immediately knows it. He immediately senses the power that’s gone out of Him. And everything just stops. And Jesus asks who touched him. Now, remember, Jesus is the Son of God. And I don’t think He asked that question because He didn’t know this woman was there or what had happened. I think He asked the question because in that moment, the woman had a choice. She could either keep hiding, or she could be honest and confess. He’s drawing her out. He is giving her a chance to face everything once and for all. And this poor woman, she picks up whatever courage she has, and she tells Jesus what happened. Luke 8:47 says that she realized she couldn’t go unnoticed and she fell trembling at his feet. Mark 5:33 says she told Him the whole truth. Luke 8:47 says she told Him why she touched Him. And I cannot imagine that this was just, “Well, you know, Jesus, I’ve got this medical condition I thought you could fix.” I imagine that this confession to Jesus was complete heartbreak, where she’s totally honest about everything this condition has cost her and how desperate she is feel clean, and how she just couldn’t take being alone anymore, about how that was slowly killing her. And Jesus tells her, “Your faith has healed you, go in peace.” Just pause there for a second. She was not just having faith that he could make her just physically well. She was having faith that He could give her a path to people and joy and a life that felt worth it. And that makes her story so much more than just a quote unquote, standard miracle. You have to understand that for Jesus to give her that second shot at a normal life after she’d had that much pain was a miracle all by itself.

In all of that context, here’s where we pivot all of this back into the leadership space. So many of us right now are like this woman. We don’t wanna make trouble. We’re so scared to be honest and make a simple ask, because we know deep down that the simple ask is tied to this spiderweb of bigger, deeper things. And it can paralyze us. In the office, you know, that can show up as maybe trying to figure stuff out on your own instead of messaging a colleague, or maybe you don’t speak up in a meeting when you’re overwhelmed because you’re scared people are gonna throw stones at you, stuff like, “Well, everybody else is handling it, why can’t you?” or “We’ve got bigger priorities — why are you wasting our time with something so small?” And so we can try to just make do, right? We touch the robe and hope nobody will notice us taking the nap we need in our car, or we go into a job interview thinking, “I can’t ask for what’s really gonna cover my expenses because the industry just doesn’t pay that, so I'll just say I’m looking for the top of the range in the job posting.”

I know this friend of mine…and I can tell you, this person, to be quite honest, they have not had an easy life. And every time I go to their house, they lament to me. They’ll show me little things they need a hand with, stuff that’s going undone. They’ll talk about things they’d like to do. But the one thing that almost never comes out of their mouth is a direct ask. And it’s slowly getting better. But I understand they just, a lot of the time, they’re too scared to be direct. But there is no question they have need. Like, I can just feel it sitting there between us on the couch as we chat. And so I try really hard, when I can, not to just immediately jump in with an offer to fix it all, but to direct the conversation in a way where it feels more natural and safe for them to verbalize what the need actually is. Because I understand in that moment that there’s value in them having that experience of safe expression, of them learning to go beyond implication. And you can do that, too, but you have to really observe well and be willing to tune into those little pings of instinct that show you the need is simmering underneath.

And if I can be even more personal here with you for a second, part of the reason I’m so passionate about the story of the woman with the hemorrhage is because for so much of my life, to be really honest, that’s how I felt. Like it was fine for everybody else to be there crowding around Him, but for me to be there, to have an ask, even a simple, simple ask, that was somehow out of bounds. It was somehow too much. And so one of my biggest areas of healing has been to try to see myself as God saw her. And in seeing her, like, really seeing her, I’ve started to slowly understand that these boundaries we so often imagine around God don’t have to be there, that they’re things we create and, through God’s help, can tear down so we can start to work as He intended us to work.

The question that creates for leaders is, “What invisible needs are reaching for you today — and are you willing to stop the crowd to find them?” Stopping can be so, so hard to do, can’t it? The disciples — see, Jairus, he wasn’t just anybody. He was a synagogue leader. A somebody. Important. And he and the disciples, they knew that every minute counts to get to Jairus’ house to tend to his daughter. So, when Jesus stops for this woman, who’s essentially nobody, they’re like, “Are you serious? Come on, man, we’ve got a job already. We don’t have time for this.” And that happens all the time in business, too. We make a hierarchy of things or even people. But Jesus did not make the mistake of thinking that a person’s authority or status automatically meant that they deserved mercy more than anybody else. And He saw Jairus’ fear and pain, and that was valid, but the woman who touched his robe, Her suffering was valid, too. And in His heart He saw the core of them both. He wanted to help them both. And leaders, here’s the most beautiful thing. If you keep reading the story, this pause that Jesus takes, it changes this woman’s life. But in that pause, Jairus’ daughter dies. Messengers come and give him the news. But Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.” And they keep going. And when they get to Jairus’ house, it’s clear, the daughter is gone. The mourners are already there. But Jesus goes to her, tells everybody she’s just sleeping, and what does He do? He raises her from the dead. Now, in the even bigger picture, this is a play that Jesus will use more than once. Later on, we see him delay before he raises Lazarus from the dead, too. And what I want you to take from that is, slowing down doesn’t have to cost you. It can even make the next thing you do even more powerful and awe-inspiring to other people. The things you think are extra in fact can be crucial parts of your bigger story.

So, what does this look like in your everyday operations? One of your first priorities has to be to address your culture to slow it down. That means you put time into the meetings for people to be not just productive, but also genuine. You build space for them to share by intentionally inviting them to connect, by saying, “Let’s have that extra cup of coffee so you can tell me what you mean,” or “I’ve noticed x, y, and z, and I wanna make sure you’re OK.” And you break the ice and bring up what’s tough in compassionate ways so people aren’t afraid to talk about it, so they know they’re safe enough to be truthful with you. Because some of the most life-changing moments come not when you broadcast, but when you finally notice. Just look around you. Ask yourself, “Who might be afraid to quote unquote ‘bother’ me? Who’s touching the edge of the robe instead of asking for help? And how can I bring both their worth and wounds into the light?”

The second part of this is, don’t just look for the little fish, OK? In this story, the woman's bleeding was actually the little fish. But your job as a leader often isn’t to just stop the bleeding. It’s to restore the whole person. That’s the big fish. The woman with the hemorrhage, she didn’t just need physical healing. She needed reinclusion. Dignity. To be seen again, not as a problem, an interruption, but as a daughter. Ask yourself every day, every time you get into a new group, who needs more than a small or temporary solution? Who feels invisible and needs your help to be seen? Because from my experience, when people are quiet but they still have that hand coming out for the hem of the garment, almost always they are pleading. Almost always it is a signal of a much larger story of pain, isolation, or hope. And most of the time, like the woman with the hemorrhage, they’re desperate to tell the truth. Everything in them wants to let it go. They just need someone to slow down and look so they remember they are a son or daughter of the Lord. And we can do that for them. We can be the leaders who stop. Who listen. Who restore.

Let’s go ahead and pray.

Lord, to have trouble is bad enough. But to have trouble and be so scared that trying to get relief is gonna bring only more trouble…Lord, that shatters us. I ask today that if there’s someone listening today who’s sitting in that fear, just wrap them in complete peace. Put Your arms around them, God, so they know You don’t want to let go, that it’s OK to have You help. And in our leadership, protect us from whatever pride might make us move too quickly to see the full stories of those around us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

With this as a challenge to you to go out and connect more deeply, and in recognition that storytelling is part of the way we heal together, I’ll invite you to put our next episode on your calendar. I’ll be chatting with award winning director David Alford and actor Joseph Stam of Cross Purposes Productions. They’ll share about their latest film, plus share insights about telling your story in a way that’s both entertaining and honoring to God. Join me for that in two weeks, listeners. Be blessed.