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This year is the first year ever of doing "Come, Follow Me." We are studying the New Testament and I love learning more about Christ and His mortal life on earth. This week we were studying Matthew 8-9 and Mark 2-5- miracles that Christ performed in cities as He taught His gospel that was to replace Mosaic Law. Most of these stories I have heard before, but after great things and hard (but wonderful) things that have happened in my life, I read them with a new lens. As Christ went around teaching and performing miracles, word got around. He was approached by a man named Jairus who asked if Christ would come and heal his twelve-year-old daughter who was almost dead. Christ followed the man to the man's home, but as He did, others followed him. The streets in Jerusalem were (are) narrow and as I read and imagine it, crowds of people were surrounding and touching Him and His disciples. A woman in the city with a disease she had suffered with for twelve years, waited for Christ to pass her and when He did, she touched His robe. She knew if she could just touch Him, she could be healed. I don't think she wanted to cause a scene. She probably didn't want to be noticed; but, when she touched Him, Christ stopped in the street and asked who touched Him. He knew who she was, where she was, and she was healed. Her faith had made her whole.

The story of that woman is one of my favorites in the scriptures. Stories of faith are tender and personal to me. Today I learned about a different perspective in the story: that of Jairus. This man, who was probably in a hurry- probably thinking that his daughter could pass at any second, frantic and in a panic, rushing with the Savior behind him to get to his house, to his dying daughter in bed. As they walk through the crowd, Christ stops, heals the woman with the disease of blood, and moments later, Jairus's servant appears to inform him that his daughter has died. I wonder what went on in his heart. Could he have regretted Christ's decision to stop and heal this woman? Did he wonder if his daughter would have lived if those moments weren't spared? Maybe he didn't- maybe his faith had increased so greatly in those moments, he knew Christ could heal his daughter, regardless of her state when He got to her. I don't know, but I think Jairus could have needed that detour to increase his faith so his daughter could be healed.

I think I have had some detours to increase my faith. I think I'll need that faith for bigger things later. I think of myself ten or even five years ago and how very sure I was of my plan. Of course every detail was not guaranteed, but surely the larger picture. Now almost everything is different but I possess something I couldn't have had if my life would have gone according to my plan: greater faith. Faith to me is survival now. Faith is how I function. Faith is how I feel happy. Faith is how I feel excited about the future. I was driving today thinking about how people make plans- "In three years I will move to a new house," "In ten years, my child will graduate from high school," "Next week, I will go to the grocery store." How do we look forward to things when we don't know if they will happen? How do we hope? Why is it after cancer that I require faith to look forward to things...and shouldn't it be the other way around? Now after blessings and specific inspiration about my future shouldn't I feel the greatest hope, the greatest excitement, the greatest faith in the future? Because instead of imagined outcomes to the happiest things life has to offer, I can assuredly place my hope in not my own musings, but in the Savior Himself- who raised Jairus's daughter from the dead, calmed violent winds, created the earth, and defeated death. Surely, I can have faith enough for my miracle.