Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” - John 5:2-6

Bethesda means “House of Mercy.” I think it’s significant this is where Adonai meets the man who had been sick for 38 years, nearly a lifetime. This man had been sitting by that pool for a long time and seemed to have given up, and this is where Jesus met him—in a place He so often meets all of us. 

This isn’t the only passage where Jesus meets someone at the end of their rope. The woman with the issue of blood in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke reaches out for the edge of His garment. After searching and being sick for 12 long years, desperate for healing, suddenly the answer found her. 

“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering,” Jesus tells her in Mark 5:34. 

And some say it was 12 years that Joseph spent in prison, though we aren’t really sure. But what I am sure of is that God met Joseph in that place and set him free from bondage in His timing.

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20), Joseph tells his brothers who sold him into slavery and were the cause of so much trouble that fell into his life. Among many other things, I believe the story of Joseph teaches us that God’s timing is perfect.

I like to think God reaches out to us in our hardest moments if we’ll see Him; that He doesn’t shy away from us when we’re in despair; that He’s always speaking if only we’ll hear.

And so I pray God gives you ears to hear what the Spirit is saying in these times, and that you’ll listen. And I pray you’ll be given a heart to know Him if you don’t—to love Him, to seek Him, and embrace Him fully along with all that He is. 

I can’t help but keep seeing this picture of a sunflower in a blindingly bright yellow field. You know its buds can track the sun’s movements and it gets its name in part from how it turns towards its light throughout the day. And my, what a wonderful thing this flower can teach us.

And so I hope, dear one, in the places where it hurts most, you can be like the sunflower. No matter what circumstances you find yourself in—I hope you can always turn towards the Son.

Because, “Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame” (Psalm 34:5).