At the beginning of the summer I began a journey through the gospel of John with our junior church. We have a big poster on the wall that says “Book of John Scavenger Hunt,” where we are on the lookout for the 7 miracles of Jesus and the seven “I AM” statements he made.
This past Sunday we finally made it to Miracle #3, the healing of the lame man.
The brilliant thing about teaching Scripture to kids is that you start to see it in new ways, you know? Kids don’t care about what theologians you’ve read or some great speaker you’ve heard talk about the subject. They just want to know the story and why it matters.
So I told them the basics. This guy couldn’t walk for like  38 years and could never get into the pool to be healed, and then Jesus walks up to him, asks him if he wants to be well and then tells the guy to take his mat and go. Then later Jesus comes to him and tells him to stop sinning.
After we went over the story I brought out a pair of white sweat pants, to represent legs. and how Jesus healed the man’s legs. Then we started talking about all of the different things we might need to be healed from, not just body things but spirit things. Like punching people, being angry, greed… and the kids had the opportunity to write those things on the pants so we could pray over all of those things we need to be healed from, like the man and his legs.
But the thing is, Jesus asked the man if he actually wanted to be well.
Lately I’ve been struggling a lot with my cynicism and pessimism and God keeps drawing me close and saying “I can conquer this for you, if you let me.”
IF I LET HIM.
Because let’s be real. Sometimes it’s fun to be the victim, to have the eyes to focus on the unfair and frustrating. and sometimes I think, “what will I have to talk about if it is not complaining?”
And in those moments God leans in close and says “Stephanie, do you want to be well?” and all I can do is respond in desperation and exhaustion, “Yes Lord, I want to be well.”