The miracles of Jesus are starting to make sense to my heart. It’s a first for me. I am the woman from Mark 5 with perpetual bleeding, except my would isn’t physical, it’s emotional: I have an emotional wound that isolates me. And yet I reached out through the crowd, despite all the distractions, people, and messages telling me not bother. I just wanted to touch the hem of His cloak, I knew then I would be healed. I found the hem of His cloak in the community of St. Peter’s and in Christ’s presence in this community. When I dared to become vulnerable like the woman with perpetual bleeding beautiful things started happening.

I am the leper in Mark 1. The leper whose inability to feel things and mangled body isolates him from relationship. Out of fear and social constructs I often think it’s still best to cut off vulnerability for fear of further wounding myself. This leprous disease of emotions trapped me in misery and perpetuated painful habits that I couldn’t feel. Yet Jesus was not and is not fearful, he is not timid, and he didn’t care whether the leper was physically leprous or that I was emotionally leprous. Christ walked into my isolation and my inability to feel. He is reaching out and touching the deepest part of me so that I might be healed as the leper was.

This community, and the relationships I have been gifted with are recreating many of the miracles of Jesus in my life simply because He is present in them. Where Jesus is, healing is. Healing for me is both relational and emotional, and just as the woman with perpetual bleeding was healed by Jesus so am I being healed simply by encountering Him in this community. Just as the leper is healed by Jesus walking into the mess of disease and touching where no one else will, so this community has walked into my life and touched my hurt where no one else was willing.

— Breanne Lande

If you call St. Pete’s home and would like to share a story of renewal, please email our Creative Development Coordinator, Derek Martin.