Chapter 1: The Sentence She Could Not Finish
At the laundromat, a woman listens to a message from her brother while the dryers turn behind her. He says he has entered treatment again. He sounds hopeful, and she wants to believe him. She has heard that same hope before, though, and remembers the calls that came afterward. She opens the notes app on her phone to write a prayer, types three words, and deletes them. What troubles her most is not that she doubts her brother. It is that she feels ashamed of how frightened she is to ask God for something she has already asked for so many times.
That private hesitation is what draws me to the woman in Mark 5:25–34. In the story of the woman who touched Jesus' garment, the moment everyone remembers is her healing. But before she reached Him, she had lived twelve years with bleeding that would not stop. Mark tells us that she had suffered under many physicians, spent all she had, and grown worse. He does not give us her private prayers. I would not claim to know them. Still, I wonder what it takes to keep looking for help when disappointment has become the most familiar part of your days.
I think this is also connected to finding your way back to God after disappointment, because sometimes we mistake reluctance for rejection. We assume that if prayer feels difficult, our faith must be disappearing. Yet a person can love God and dread another answer they do not understand. The woman in the crowd did not arrive with a speech about everything she believed. Scripture gives us a much smaller expression of her hope: “If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole” (Mark 5:28, KJV). She believed Jesus could help her, and she moved toward Him.
I am careful about what we take from that moment. We cannot turn the touch of His garment into a method for getting the outcome we want. She was healed; many faithful people continue to suffer. Her encounter tells us something true about Jesus, not that we can make every hard circumstance disappear by choosing the right words or reaching with enough confidence.
But perhaps it also gives us permission to stop pretending that prayer must begin with confidence. The woman at the laundromat may never find a sentence that sounds certain. She could begin with what is true: “Lord, I want to hope for him, but I am afraid.” It would not fix her brother's addiction, and it would not place his choices under her control. It would mean she had stopped hiding her fear from the One she was trying to speak to.
I have come to believe that there is a difference between losing hope and being afraid to hold it again. One can look a lot like the other from the outside. Jesus met a woman whose strength and resources had been worn down over years, and the first thing Mark lets us hear from her is not a perfect prayer. It is the simple hope that He might still be worth reaching for.
Chapter 2: The Things We Are Afraid to Tell God
A man sits alone in his apartment after learning that his hours at work have been reduced. He has already checked his bank account three times, although he knows the number will not change. His rent is due soon, and the conversation he needs to have with his landlord fills him with dread. He closes his eyes to pray, but the words that come to mind embarrass him. He is angry, frightened, and tired of asking God for help while another problem seems to be waiting around the corner.
I wonder how many of us have quietly decided that certain feelings should never become part of our prayers. We can admit that we need help, but anger seems disrespectful. We can ask for strength, but admitting that we feel abandoned seems dangerous. So we edit ourselves before speaking to God, hoping to sound like the person we believe a faithful Christian ought to be.
Yet when I return to the woman in Mark 5, I notice something that happens after her healing. Jesus stops and asks who touched His clothes. The disciples are confused because people are pressing against Him from every direction. But Jesus continues looking, and the woman comes forward.
Mark tells us she was “fearing and trembling.” She falls before Him and tells Him “all the truth.”
Those words stay with me because they describe a person standing before Jesus without concealing what has happened. Scripture does not record everything she said, so we cannot know whether she spoke of the physicians, the lost money, or her years of suffering. We only know that she told Him the truth, and He answered her with compassion.
He called her “Daughter.”
I think about how much fear we carry into prayer simply because we imagine God will be disappointed by our honesty. We worry that admitting our frustration means we have stopped trusting Him. But the Psalms are filled with people bringing their confusion, sorrow, and difficult questions before the Lord. David did not always sound peaceful when he prayed. He sometimes sounded like a man who desperately needed God to hear him.
The man worrying about his rent does not have to pretend that his situation is under control. He can ask God for wisdom, make the difficult phone call, look for additional work, and admit that he is scared. Prayer does not replace responsibility, but neither does responsibility make prayer unnecessary.
I cannot promise that telling God the truth will immediately change what you are facing. The woman in Mark received a miracle, while other faithful people continue waiting through circumstances they never wanted.
But I believe there is a freedom in approaching Jesus without trying to improve the appearance of our suffering first. We can speak to Him as we actually are, trusting that His compassion is not dependent on how convincingly we pretend to be okay.
Chapter 3: The Prayer That Stays on the Page
On Saturday morning, a widow opens the drawer where she keeps the small notebook her husband used for grocery lists. Half the pages are still blank. She thinks about writing a prayer there, but she has not been able to say much to God since his death. She prayed for him when he was sick, and he died anyway. Now she worries that speaking honestly about her sadness will sound like an accusation. So the notebook stays open on the table while she makes coffee for one.
I would never tell her that the woman in Mark 5 explains why one person is healed and another is not. It doesn't. The woman reached for Jesus and her bleeding stopped. That is what Scripture says, and it is good news. But the Bible also makes room for people who cry out and keep waiting. The psalms contain prayers from people who feel forgotten. Jesus Himself wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Grief is not a failure to believe.
What stays with me about the woman in the crowd is what Jesus said when she came forward trembling: “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace” (Mark 5:34, KJV). He did not speak to her as a problem that had finally been fixed. He spoke to her as a person. Her healing mattered, and so did she.
For those of us whose circumstances have not changed, that distinction is important. We cannot borrow her miracle and claim it as a promise about our own bodies, finances, or relationships. But we can look at the way Jesus received her. We can trust His character without pretending to know what He will do next. And we can let an unfinished prayer remain a real prayer.
Perhaps the widow eventually writes one line in her husband's notebook: “I miss him, Lord, and I don't understand.” Perhaps that is all she has strength for today. She can bring those words to God, then call someone who loved him too, or take a walk before the house grows too quiet. Neither action erases what happened. Both are ways to keep living while carrying the truth.
If your prayer keeps disappearing before you finish it, please don't assume God only welcomes the polished version. The woman in the crowd came trembling and told Him the truth. You can bring yours as well, even when it is unfinished.
Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph
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