The Canaanite woman -Matthew 15:21-28 mark 7 ;24-30
I had been following Jesus for days. I'd first heard about him when he passed close to my village and I saw people rushing out of their houses to see if they could catch a glimpse of him as he passed by. I didnt know what was happening but joined the crowd, interested to find out what had caused such a stir. Someone close to me explained that a jewish teacher was coming through and that he was becoming famous throughout the whole region because wherever he went sick people were getting well again. I thought this sounded unlikely, but I thought Id follow along that afternoon and see what happened.
Jesus stopped at the edge of our village and sat down at the side of the road. He was instantly mobbed by crowds of villagers, and his friends ( there seemed to be a group of about ten of them) tried to get people to back off and sit down and told everyone that Jesus would have time for all of them if they would just settle. So we all sat down and he started to talk. He mostly told stories. Some of them were very funny. Some were a bit odd and I didnt really understand them. But he had a way of talking about God which Id never heard before. Mind you, I was a gentile so I wasnt used to hearing the Jewish way of talking about God at all. I knew they had lots of rules and regulations to follow and certain foods to eat and so on, but I didnt really know what they believed. It was interesting listening to the teacher. He made me think
But then, after he had spoken for quite a while, he pointed to a woman in the crowd and told her that she had been suffering from headaches for several months. The woman gasped and then nodded. Jesus asked her to come to him which she did. He put his hands on her head and said a blessing over her. Then he told her her headaches were gone. She looked very moved. She was crying. I was a bit sceptical, I mean, how could you tell? It might be a week before she had another headache and he would be long gone by then. Then a man came forward with a little boy of about six or seven. The child was walking with a crutch. The father said that the boy had been born with one leg twisted so his foot was facing the wrong way. Jesus smiled at the boy, bent down and touched his foot and prayed something I couldnt quite hear. The next thing the child was shouting and the father was crying and the boy went running - literally running - round the crowd in a big circle yelling that he could walk!! Everyone went crazy. It was amazing. After that about a dozen people from our village were prayed for by Jesus. Old Martha who had lost her eyesight a couple of years ago, Aaron the blacksmith who had broken his wrist and it had never set right, Dorcas who had been suffering with a fever, and her daughter who was also not well. And others I didnt know. I saw them all become instantly well, healed, straight, fixed. The whole village was buzzing with the excitement of what was happening.
After everyone who needed prayer had received it Jesus told us to be thankful to God and to worship Him in spirit and truth. And then he picked up his stick and moved on down the road with his followers. The people went back home to tell those who had not been there what had just happened.
I too went home to tell my husband and mother in law what I had just seen. And to beg them to help me get our daughter to Jesus somehow. I was certain that he would be able to make her well if only we could get her to him.
My daughter Marta was ten years old. She had been a perfectly healthy and normal baby but when she was about three years old she suddenly started to behave very oddly. She stopped talking, she became aggressive and would hurt herself by banging her head on walls and floors. She reacted really badly to loud noise or people she didnt know. Sometimes even a change in the weather would cause her to sit in a corner of the room on the floor and rock back and forth. We had to dress her and feed her and couldnt leave her alone for fear that she would hurt herself. Our whole lives had become dominated by trying to care for her. We were exhausted and utterly without hope. Some of our family members had suggested we take her out into the countryside and leave her there. But neither my husband or I could contemplate doing that. We loved her. Thankfully my husbands mother was a good woman who helped us alot. My family was a long way away in Syria so I had to rely on her a lot.
When I got home that afternoon and told them what I had witnessed they both got quite excited. They knew some of the people who had been healed and how lifechanging it was going to be for them. For the first time in seven years we all suddenly had a glimmer of hope that there might be a miracle out there for Marta. But we had no idea how we might manage to get her to Jesus. She rarely left the house and if she did she would usually be kicking and screaming and extremely distressed after a few minutes. She certainly wouldnt cope with the crowds that followed Jesus everywhere. My husband suggested that we might be able to ask Jesus if he would come to our house to pray for Marta. It seemed to be the only solution so for the next few days I tracked Jesus down and followed him from place to place trying to get close enough to him to ask.
Finally after several days of either not knowing where he had gone or not being able to get near him because of the huge crowds, I was able to follow him to a house in Tyre which nobody else seemed to have sussed was his lodging for the night. I was so tired and so nervous but I knew I had to take my chance there and then, so I knocked on the door. It was opened by one of Jesus's followers who didnt look particularly pleased to see me.
' Please sir, I have come to ask Jesus if he would come and heal my daughter. She is only ten years old and she has been afflicted most of her life by some evil spirit which makes her hurt herself and causes her great distress'
The man mumbled something and closed the door on me. I knocked again. And kept knocking until eventually the door opened again. This time I could see Jesus standing behind the man who opened the door. I pushed past the doorkeeper and literally threw myself at Jesus's feet begging him to please help me. I told him that I had seen what he had done for other people and that I knew that he could do the same for Marta if he could just put his hands on her. Im sure I was making a complete fool of myself. But I didnt care. The only possibility of my daughter's healing was standing right in front of me. I wasnt going to go home without Jesus with me.
Jesus stood there looking at me as I knelt on the floor. One of his friends said ' Lord, send her away. We have come here to rest and she is just causing a scene. She isnt even one of us.' Jesus smiled at me and held out his hand to help me stand up. He said ' He is right you know. My gifts have been given first of all to the people of Israel. God has bread from heaven to be given to them and it isnt right that heaven's bread should be fed to the pet dog before the children of the house have eaten.' I knew what he meant. I was a Greek speaking gentile from a foreign country asking for the God of the Jews to bless me. I knew I had no right whatsoever to ask it. But I believed that the God of the Jews was able to heal my daughter so I said ' I know I have no right to even be here. I know Im disturbing your rest and that Im not a child of Israel so am not one of the children of the house. But even the pet dogs get the leftovers after the children have eaten. Im just asking for even a crumb, a scrap, anything you can do for my daughter. Please sir, anything at all'.
Jesus nodded and looked round at his followers. Then he looked me in the eye and something about his eyes made me shiver. He said ' You have faith, and this sort of faith changes things. Go home. Your daughter is delivered and is completely restored.' He then turned to go back into the living area of the house and I found myself being ushered out of the door by the doorman. I blinked in the strong sunlight and wondered what had just happened. I ran home to find out.
When I got there Marta was sitting at the table. She was dressed, she was eating soup with a spoon out of a bowl. My mother in law was standing watching her with a smile as broad as could be on her face. My husband was standing behind her stroking her hair as she ate, tears rolling down his face. When they all saw me they rushed at me and all started talking at once. The fact that Marta could talk was in itself astonishing. She told me that at the exact time that I had been speaking to Jesus she had fallen into a deep sleep. When she woke up she was completely free of all her torment. She had got up, got dressed and gone into the kitchen where her grandmother and father had been sitting. They had scarcely been able to believe it was her - and when she started asking if she could have something to eat because she was hungry........
Our lives changed completely from that day on. Our daughter is a beautiful and accomplished young lady and we have two sons now. My husband has been able to put much more time into his work and has done really well, being promoted twice in the past couple of years. We are happy and healthy and we all now pray to the God of the Jews thanking him every day for the prophet Jesus and the miracles he has done for us.
Jesus stopped at the edge of our village and sat down at the side of the road. He was instantly mobbed by crowds of villagers, and his friends ( there seemed to be a group of about ten of them) tried to get people to back off and sit down and told everyone that Jesus would have time for all of them if they would just settle. So we all sat down and he started to talk. He mostly told stories. Some of them were very funny. Some were a bit odd and I didnt really understand them. But he had a way of talking about God which Id never heard before. Mind you, I was a gentile so I wasnt used to hearing the Jewish way of talking about God at all. I knew they had lots of rules and regulations to follow and certain foods to eat and so on, but I didnt really know what they believed. It was interesting listening to the teacher. He made me think
But then, after he had spoken for quite a while, he pointed to a woman in the crowd and told her that she had been suffering from headaches for several months. The woman gasped and then nodded. Jesus asked her to come to him which she did. He put his hands on her head and said a blessing over her. Then he told her her headaches were gone. She looked very moved. She was crying. I was a bit sceptical, I mean, how could you tell? It might be a week before she had another headache and he would be long gone by then. Then a man came forward with a little boy of about six or seven. The child was walking with a crutch. The father said that the boy had been born with one leg twisted so his foot was facing the wrong way. Jesus smiled at the boy, bent down and touched his foot and prayed something I couldnt quite hear. The next thing the child was shouting and the father was crying and the boy went running - literally running - round the crowd in a big circle yelling that he could walk!! Everyone went crazy. It was amazing. After that about a dozen people from our village were prayed for by Jesus. Old Martha who had lost her eyesight a couple of years ago, Aaron the blacksmith who had broken his wrist and it had never set right, Dorcas who had been suffering with a fever, and her daughter who was also not well. And others I didnt know. I saw them all become instantly well, healed, straight, fixed. The whole village was buzzing with the excitement of what was happening.
After everyone who needed prayer had received it Jesus told us to be thankful to God and to worship Him in spirit and truth. And then he picked up his stick and moved on down the road with his followers. The people went back home to tell those who had not been there what had just happened.
I too went home to tell my husband and mother in law what I had just seen. And to beg them to help me get our daughter to Jesus somehow. I was certain that he would be able to make her well if only we could get her to him.
My daughter Marta was ten years old. She had been a perfectly healthy and normal baby but when she was about three years old she suddenly started to behave very oddly. She stopped talking, she became aggressive and would hurt herself by banging her head on walls and floors. She reacted really badly to loud noise or people she didnt know. Sometimes even a change in the weather would cause her to sit in a corner of the room on the floor and rock back and forth. We had to dress her and feed her and couldnt leave her alone for fear that she would hurt herself. Our whole lives had become dominated by trying to care for her. We were exhausted and utterly without hope. Some of our family members had suggested we take her out into the countryside and leave her there. But neither my husband or I could contemplate doing that. We loved her. Thankfully my husbands mother was a good woman who helped us alot. My family was a long way away in Syria so I had to rely on her a lot.
When I got home that afternoon and told them what I had witnessed they both got quite excited. They knew some of the people who had been healed and how lifechanging it was going to be for them. For the first time in seven years we all suddenly had a glimmer of hope that there might be a miracle out there for Marta. But we had no idea how we might manage to get her to Jesus. She rarely left the house and if she did she would usually be kicking and screaming and extremely distressed after a few minutes. She certainly wouldnt cope with the crowds that followed Jesus everywhere. My husband suggested that we might be able to ask Jesus if he would come to our house to pray for Marta. It seemed to be the only solution so for the next few days I tracked Jesus down and followed him from place to place trying to get close enough to him to ask.
Finally after several days of either not knowing where he had gone or not being able to get near him because of the huge crowds, I was able to follow him to a house in Tyre which nobody else seemed to have sussed was his lodging for the night. I was so tired and so nervous but I knew I had to take my chance there and then, so I knocked on the door. It was opened by one of Jesus's followers who didnt look particularly pleased to see me.
' Please sir, I have come to ask Jesus if he would come and heal my daughter. She is only ten years old and she has been afflicted most of her life by some evil spirit which makes her hurt herself and causes her great distress'
The man mumbled something and closed the door on me. I knocked again. And kept knocking until eventually the door opened again. This time I could see Jesus standing behind the man who opened the door. I pushed past the doorkeeper and literally threw myself at Jesus's feet begging him to please help me. I told him that I had seen what he had done for other people and that I knew that he could do the same for Marta if he could just put his hands on her. Im sure I was making a complete fool of myself. But I didnt care. The only possibility of my daughter's healing was standing right in front of me. I wasnt going to go home without Jesus with me.
Jesus stood there looking at me as I knelt on the floor. One of his friends said ' Lord, send her away. We have come here to rest and she is just causing a scene. She isnt even one of us.' Jesus smiled at me and held out his hand to help me stand up. He said ' He is right you know. My gifts have been given first of all to the people of Israel. God has bread from heaven to be given to them and it isnt right that heaven's bread should be fed to the pet dog before the children of the house have eaten.' I knew what he meant. I was a Greek speaking gentile from a foreign country asking for the God of the Jews to bless me. I knew I had no right whatsoever to ask it. But I believed that the God of the Jews was able to heal my daughter so I said ' I know I have no right to even be here. I know Im disturbing your rest and that Im not a child of Israel so am not one of the children of the house. But even the pet dogs get the leftovers after the children have eaten. Im just asking for even a crumb, a scrap, anything you can do for my daughter. Please sir, anything at all'.
Jesus nodded and looked round at his followers. Then he looked me in the eye and something about his eyes made me shiver. He said ' You have faith, and this sort of faith changes things. Go home. Your daughter is delivered and is completely restored.' He then turned to go back into the living area of the house and I found myself being ushered out of the door by the doorman. I blinked in the strong sunlight and wondered what had just happened. I ran home to find out.
When I got there Marta was sitting at the table. She was dressed, she was eating soup with a spoon out of a bowl. My mother in law was standing watching her with a smile as broad as could be on her face. My husband was standing behind her stroking her hair as she ate, tears rolling down his face. When they all saw me they rushed at me and all started talking at once. The fact that Marta could talk was in itself astonishing. She told me that at the exact time that I had been speaking to Jesus she had fallen into a deep sleep. When she woke up she was completely free of all her torment. She had got up, got dressed and gone into the kitchen where her grandmother and father had been sitting. They had scarcely been able to believe it was her - and when she started asking if she could have something to eat because she was hungry........
Our lives changed completely from that day on. Our daughter is a beautiful and accomplished young lady and we have two sons now. My husband has been able to put much more time into his work and has done really well, being promoted twice in the past couple of years. We are happy and healthy and we all now pray to the God of the Jews thanking him every day for the prophet Jesus and the miracles he has done for us.
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