Peter's Mother-in-law - Luke 4 :38, Mark 1:29

The first I knew of you was when my daughter came to visit saying that Simon was leaving the boats to become your follower.   At first we thought she was joking..... but when we saw the look on her face we realised that she was deadly serious.   To say that my husband was less than pleased would be an understatement.   He went storming round to Simon's house to ask him what he thought he was playing at .  There was a massive argument,  Andrew sided with Simon and said he was leaving too, my daughter was in tears because her father and husband were yelling at each other..... the whole thing was most unpleasant and we just could not understand what had got into Simon.   Yes, we all knew he could be a bit rash at times.   But he had spent a long time building up his fishing business with his brother, and for him just to leave it all to go off on some crazy whim seemed to us to be absolute madness.

Our daughter was distraught.   Simon had apparently assured her that everything would be fine and that he would still be able to provide for her - he wasn't clear quite how that would happen.   He said he would arrange for his nephew to take over the running of the boat for a while.   But it all sounded ridiculous to us.   We were cross and worried and wondered what the neighbours would think when the story got out that our daughter's husband had upped and left to follow some wandering preacher.

Three days after all that upset I woke up with a fever.

At first I just thought it would be a twenty four hour bug and that I would start to feel better by the end of the day.  But the next day I felt worse.  I couldn't lift my head off the pillow.  I was boiling hot yet felt cold to the bone and I couldn't eat anything.  My husband was worried about me.  My daughter came over and sat beside me with a damp cloth mopping the sweat from my brow.   In the middle of the afternoon I heard someone come into the house and the voices of men outside.   The next thing I knew a complete stranger was standing by my bed.  Simon was with him.

Simon leaned over me and said  ' Anna, this is Jesus.  This is the Rabbi I was telling you about.  We told him you were sick.   He would like to meet you'.    I groaned, wondering what on earth Simon was playing at bringing someone into the house to visit me when I was so clearly ill.

Then you spoke.

It's funny.  Your voice sounded exactly the same as anyone elses voice - except that it didn't.   You spoke quietly, but your words seemed to go right into me and expand inside my body.  I cant really describe it, but as you spoke something physical happened to me.  You said  'Fever, let go of her'  and it was as though the words filled me and pushed out every trace of sickness.  I could feel the fever leaving my body as you reached out your hand to help me up.   As I took your hand I felt power and strength flow into me and a lightness crashed in on me so that I almost sprang out of bed.  I felt better than I had felt in years.  I felt full of joy.  And love.   You looked at me and as I took in your face, your kind eyes, your smile, I knew that Simon had been quite right to follow you.  It would be impossible not to follow you.   You were irresistible.

Grinning like a silly girl I invited you to stay for tea.   You said you would love to.
I went to prepare some food.   Everyone else just stood there, dumbfounded at what they had just seen.