Chronic sickness can be one of the most difficult things to endure. If you have to endure the day in, day out little hassles of having the same illness over a long period of time, you know how it can wear on you. Each day follows the similar routines, those that were developed in order to keep the symptoms at as manageable level as possible. For some, every action of life is connected to the illness. You can never get away from it.
It really doesn’t matter whether the illness is AIDS or diabetes or heart failure, they can each have a dampening effect on your activities and your mood.
I think of those women who wear scarves on their heads to mask the hair loss caused by their cancer treatments. They wear them with dignity and often a sense of hope. They are in the battle to win! But as treatment progresses they often show the strain the illness and treatment are taking on them. Whether it is the scars from procedures or implanted medical devices, they all have a way of intruding on life and signaling to others that they are ill.
The unnamed woman in our text has been ill for twelve years. Twelve years! We know that bleeding leads to anemia and the subsequent weakness. They didn’t have vitamin supplements or home remedies for anemia. She was stuck. Physical activities become increasingly difficult because of rapid heart rate and shortness of breath that often accompanies anemia. She has lived with this for twelve years of this!
One of the causes of bleeding like this is a complication that can happen during childbirth. Even today it happens, especially in third world countries and with very young girls. During labor the baby sits too long in one place for hours or days cutting off the blood supply causing a death of that tissue. Then either urine or bowel matter can pass into the vagina causing infections and bleeding.
We of course don’t know what caused this woman’s bleeding, but it was debilitating. Twelve years of social isolation and shame. Few of us know what this is like for such a prolonged period of time. I am sure she was used to the stares and whispers, but I can’t imagine it got any better over time.
There were also the religious implications. Because of her bleeding, she could not have participated in any of the normal Jewish celebrations. When family got together, she could not prepare the food or eat with the assembled group. She would have had to eat by herself and have someone else be involved in the food preparation. In a culture where women had most of the cooking duties, this would have brought great restrictions to her life.
If she was married, the intimacy would have suffered as well. Intimate relations could not take place with a woman who was bleeding. And when intimacy suffers it is hard to keep marital closeness. Even if she wasn’t married, she would not have been able to socialize with other women without affecting their families. Unclean people made everyone they were in contact with unclean.
Chronic illness changes people’s lives. And not just their lives, the lives of everyone around them. Remember this the next time you interact with someone with a chronic illness.
The Arnold Journey 