There are illnesses that appear on medical charts and others that remain hidden behind a composed face. There are wounds of the body, but also wounds of memory, grief, betrayal and fear. Modern medicine can diagnose much, but there are dimensions of human suffering that demand more than diagnosis. And so, in the quiet place where language becomes prayer, comes the ancient cry: “Heal me, O Master Jesus. Touch my body. Touch my soul.”
The Gospels present Jesus not as a distant observer of human suffering but as one who moved towards it. He stopped for the desperate, touched the afflicted and listened to those whom society had pushed aside. In Mark’s account, a woman who had suffered for twelve years reached through the crowd and touched His garment. Jesus answered her: “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.” Her story is more than an account of physical recovery. It is a picture of a person who had been reduced by suffering and was restored to dignity.
But the most profound wounds are not always visible. A person can walk without pain and still carry a broken heart. Someone can smile publicly while privately fighting despair. A body may recover while a wounded soul continues to bleed. This is why the prayer for healing must go deeper than the body: “Lord, touch what physicians cannot see. Touch the memories I cannot erase, the fears I cannot explain, the grief I cannot articulate and the places in me where hope has grown faint.”
There is also a harder lesson in the Gospel. When Jairus was told that his daughter had died, Jesus did not surrender to the finality of the report. He said, “Be not afraid, only believe.” He then entered the house, took the child by the hand and commanded her to rise. Faith, therefore, is not denial of reality. It is the refusal to believe that present circumstances have the final authority over one’s hope. It is the conviction that despair does not get the last word.
So this is the prayer: Heal me, Master Jesus. Touch my body where it hurts and my soul where nobody knows it hurts. Restore what can be restored; strengthen what has become weak; comfort what has been broken; and teach me to trust You where I cannot yet see the outcome. For there are seasons when all we can offer is a trembling prayer, but even then, we can still reach towards Christ. And perhaps that is where healing begins—not always with the disappearance of every pain, but with the discovery that we are no longer carrying it alone.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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