Raw-knuckled pain of inflamed hands
knobbed cousins of bent limbs,
arms at half-mast, feet swayed
like sagging posts of windswept fences
ravaged of form and function
like desires laid aside at the sickbed.

If You had not been
I would not hope
to see the pain stopped
my health restored.

If You had not come
laying aside embalming linen
risen out of the grave
to clothe me in Your royal robes
to invite me to Your feast
I would not have believed.

But now like a child
I stand before the God of Abraham
reaching for Your immortal hand
to ask for the impossible.

O, Holy Father,
help my unbelief!

Psalm 27:8
You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.”

Mark 9:21-24
And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

Mark 5:22-34
Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him.

And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”