There is a story in Luke’s gospel about 10 lepers coming to find Jesus between the region of Galilee and Samaria, and ask him that they might be healed.
It’s a little puzzling because these two regions share a common border; in fact, there isn’t a “region” between them… at least in Jesus’ day.
Anyway, they meet in this “in between place” and there Jesus responds to their cries and sends them away healed of their leprosy. One of the 10, when he sees that he is healed, turns around and returns to Jesus and gives thanks.
To this foreigner, Jesus replies, “Your faith has made you whole.”
I have discovered in my later years there is a vast difference between being healed of a particular “illness” and being made whole. When I become whole, I am settled both on my outside and my inside — my body and my spirit, if you will.
I pray for good health for myself, my family and friends, but I also find myself praying for wholeness that allows us to find peace within our spirits too.
That peace that comes can help me see God has a hand in my life and in the lives of those around me.
This weekend is Thanksgiving. May you look around you and see how you have experienced healing and then may you find the strength to go more deeply to see the hand of God that makes you whole… and then, give thanks.
