Healing Begins and Ends in His Presence

Quick Glance: For Your Heart Today

Sometimes healing comes fast and clear. Other times, it feels delayed—or like it’s not coming at all. But healing doesn’t begin with outcomes. It begins in Jesus’ presence. That’s what we see in the story of Jairus, a desperate father, and his daughter. It’s a story where delay seems like denial, but Jesus shows that His presence is never late. Even when things feel final—He is still working. Because healing begins in His presence… and ends there too.

3 Takeaways

• Healing is never too late when Jesus is present—He enters even after hope seems lost.
• Trust isn’t about knowing the outcome—it’s about staying near to the One who holds it.
• Jesus restores not only life, but fullness—body, mind, soul, and relationships.

If You Only Have a Moment

Even if you can’t read the full message today, pause here and pray:

“Jesus, when it feels too late, remind me that You are never late. Let me rest in Your presence and trust that healing is already unfolding. Amen.”

Breath Prayer
Inhale: “You are here, Jesus.”
Exhale: “And healing has begun.”
Estimated Reading Time: 15–17 minutes

Good morning, Family. I Trust in God, is one of my favorite songs. It’s a bold declaration that comes from the heart. But you know, it can be tempting to think trusting God is easy. That all we have to do is name it, claim it, grit our teeth, and trust will emanate. But sincere and honest followers of Jesus know it doesn’t quite work that way. Sometimes trusting God is hard.

It’s a spiritual practice—a spiritual muscle really—that develops over time as God shows Himself to be trustworthy over and over. I don’t know the story behind this song, but I can tell you it was born from real experiences of God’s faithfulness, born from the practice of meeting Jesus in good times and hard times. Fourth-man-in-the-fire times. That’s how we learn to trust in God.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve actually been in trust training as we’ve sat in the presence of Jesus through imaginative prayer to experience His presence in joy, pain, confusion, and hope.

We’ve been on a healing journey—a journey of mental healing, where Jesus’ peace is the antidote to depression, anxiety, and mental torment. A journey of emotional healing, where Jesus weeps with us in our grief and disappointments. A journey of relational healing, where seeing ourselves and others through Jesus’ eyes creates space for forgiveness and grace. And a journey of physical healing, where we risk reaching out in faith, believing Jesus still heals today, and trusting His answer as we seek His touch.

Each step has reminded us that healing, whatever type we may need, begins in His presence. But staying there—remaining in that space with Jesus—can be hard. Because life keeps happening.

I once heard Rick Warren say something I’ve never forgotten—he said that life is like the two rails of a train track running side by side. At any given moment, something good is happening… and at the same time something hard is happening too. Joy and sorrow. Breakthrough and disappointment. Answered prayers—and painful silence. Running side by side.

So as we close this healing journey series today, the question remains: What happens when the healing we’ve been praying for doesn’t come? When the diagnosis doesn’t shift. When the relationship stays strained. When the grief doesn’t lift. When the answer from God is deafening silence?

What happens when we are tired of waiting, discouraged or disillusioned, because it appears the healing we long for is not coming after all?

Well, that’s the moment we find ourselves in our Bible passage today.

SCRIPTURE: Mark 5:35–43 (NLT)

35 While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. They told him, “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.”
36 But Jesus overheard them and said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.”
37 Then Jesus stopped the crowd and wouldn’t let anyone go with him except Peter, James, and John (the brother of James).
38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing.
39 He went inside and asked, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.”
40 The crowd laughed at him. But he made them all leave, and he took the girl’s father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying.
41 Holding her hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up!”
42 And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and walked around! They were overwhelmed and totally amazed.
43 Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone what had happened, and then he told them to give her something to eat.

If you were here last Sunday, you may remember we ended with a story that wasn’t quite finished. Jesus had just healed a woman who had been suffering physically for twelve years. But He was actually on His way to help someone else. A father named Jairus had come to Jesus, pleading for his daughter’s life.

Now, I want us to put ourselves in Jairus’ shoes for a moment. He was a synagogue leader. That meant he wasn’t just an ordinary man in the crowd—he held spiritual authority and public respect. So coming to Jesus, publicly falling at His feet, pleading for help as we read earlier in this chapter, was a big deal.

The synagogue community wasn’t exactly a fan of Jesus. Many were suspicious and even opposed to Him. So Jairus’ request was bold. It was costly. And as a father desperate for his daughter to live, it was deeply personal.

And Jesus agreed to go with him. I can imagine Jairus exhaled for the first time in days. Finally, some hope. But then Jesus stopped. He turned His attention to someone else. The woman who had been bleeding for twelve years reached out in faith and was healed—and Jesus, instead of continuing on for Jairus’ emergency, Jesus pauses to speak with her. To affirm her. To restore her.

And as beautiful as that moment was for the woman, Jairus was still waiting. I’m sure he wanted to interrupt and say, “Jesus, we’ve got to GO!” We don’t know exactly what was going through his mind, but I imagine anxiety rising, impatience building. The longer Jesus lingered, the more desperate Jairus must have felt. Every moment felt urgent. His daughter was dying. And then the worst news came: “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.”

Can you feel the gut punch of devastation in that moment? The flood of emotion—grief, despair, anger, hopelessness. It’s heartbreaking. And for some of us, it mirrors those moments when we too feel like the door of hope has closed. Maybe even slammed shut. We had hope, we had faith, we prayed—and it didn’t happen. Healing didn’t come. The situation worsened. The window of “maybe” passed. And the worst-case scenario was happening.

But Jesus hears the news. And I love that detail. The messengers weren’t even speaking to Him, but the Bible says Jesus overheard. He was paying attention.
I love that Jesus hears even the words not meant for Him—the whispers, side comments, spoken in despair and fear. He hears what we may not even have the courage to say out loud.

And in that moment, Jesus turns to Jairus and says to him what He says to us: “Don’t be afraid. Just believe.” Now the word translated “believe” here is so much more than the mental assent of believing. It’s sometimes translated “have faith,” but actually, the Greek word pisteuō also means “trust.” To rely on. To place your full weight on someone’s reliability.

Jesus wasn’t just telling Jairus to hold onto an idea and believe in it really, really hard. He was inviting Jairus to trust in HIM—Jesus. To keep walking with Jesus—hand in hand, metaphorically speaking. To entrust the impossible in Jesus’ presence.

Now, notice Jesus didn’t promise what would happen next. He simply offered the invitation to trust. And in Jesus’ presence, that was enough for Jairus. It gave him the flicker of hope he needed to go on.

So Jesus and Jairus kept walking. When they arrived at the house, the sound of mourning was in full force—loud weeping, wailing, and cries of grief.

Given Jairus’ role as a synagogue leader, that was expected. Families of stature often hired professional mourners—people paid to cry out and amplify the grief as a sign of sympathy and respect. Some of the sorrow in that home was real. But not all of it. And Jesus knew the difference.

Jesus walks into a space—not just into the house, but into an atmosphere. Into the assumptions. The traditions. The conclusion that the story was already over.

And He says something shocking—something that sounded foolish to the crowd: “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead—she’s only asleep.”

And they laugh. Not that soft, not-sure-what-to-do, uncertain laugh. It’s mocking laughter. The dismissive, laughing-at-Him kind. They knew what death looked like. And in their eyes, Jesus clearly didn’t.

But I love how Jesus doesn’t argue or try to convince those who’ve already made up their minds. He simply clears the room.

And friends, sometimes we have to do the same thing—clear the noise and the naysayers, clear the assumptions and the traditions, and clear the distractions—so there’s space for the bigger thing God wants to do.

Jesus takes only the girl’s parents and His three closest disciples with Him into her room. And then He does something unexpected—He takes her hand.

We may recognize this as a tender, compassionate gesture. And it is. But it’s even more significant because by law, just like with the woman who had been bleeding, touching a dead body made you ceremonially unclean.

But Jesus has never backed away from what tradition called impure. We’ve seen it again and again: the bleeding woman. The man among the tombs. The lepers.

In fact, Jesus moves toward what others avoid. A mindset and model we desperately need today if we are serious about following Jesus.

Because what we see in Jesus’ presence is that His touch is never defiled—it always restores in love.

Continuing the story, Jesus speaks. Not in Greek. Not in Hebrew. But in Aramaic—the little girl’s comforting mother tongue.

“Talitha koum.” Which means, Little girl, get up.

It’s tender. Like a parent gently waking a child. And she rises.

The passage tells us she doesn’t just open her eyes. She gets out of bed. She stands. She walks. She is fully alive and restored—not just restored from whatever her sickness was, but fully healed and whole.

And then there is one final detail—one of the most understated yet powerful gestures in this story. Jesus tells her parents to give her something to eat. Because healing isn’t just about what’s visible—it’s about restoration. Nourishment. And flourishing to the fullest.

And she would have been hungry.  Jesus is attentive to her every need.

This is the fullness of what happens in Jesus’ presence.

Now about now you may be thinking, This is a happily ever after story. Jesus came through for her.  But I thought we were going to talk about when healing doesn’t come.

And you’d be right!

The truth is not everyone gets what that little girl received. Not every illness ends in a miracle. Not every prayer is answered in the way we hoped. With smiles all around.

Some of us are still waiting. Some are still aching. Some are carrying stories that haven’t turned out like Jairus’—at least…
NOT… YET…

And that’s exactly why this story matters. Because it’s not just about one little girl in one room. Her story points to a larger reality. A manifestation of something bigger. A miracle, yes—but also a message about the Kingdom of God.

Friends, wherever Jesus is, the Kingdom of God is. Jesus didn’t just announce the Kingdom—He embodied it. In His words, His healing, His presence. Wherever Jesus was, the Kingdom was breaking in.

And Jesus acknowledged that truth about Himself—He told the religious leaders things like The Kingdom of God is among you (Luke 17:21) and If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom has come upon you (Matt. 12:28).

In other words, to encounter Jesus was and is to encounter the Kingdom itself.

In Jesus’ presence is where God’s reign is fully active, where heaven touches earth, and where what is broken begins to be restored.

So the miracles of Jesus are more than moments of compassion. They’re previews of what the Kingdom is like. Signposts pointing to a greater reality. Each one a reflection of God’s promises and vision for all of creation.

Paul understood this when he wrote in Romans 8:18–19, What we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are.

In other words, family, in Jesus’ presence—in the Kingdom of God—complete healing IS coming. Full restoration IS on its way.

In Revelation 21, we’re told that one day God will dwell among His people: He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.

That’s the promise, and it’s not a pie-in-the-sky reality. The miracle in Jairus’ house was a glimpse of it, a moment when the future broke into the present.

A little girl was restored to life. Not just for her sake, but as a signpost of resurrection, a foreshadowing of Jesus’ own rising from the dead, and of the wholeness that awaits all of us in Him.

We may not all receive the miracle we long for in this life. But we can always ask. Because in Jesus, the Kingdom has already come, and if that healing doesn’t manifest fully now, one day it will. Because whether we see it or not, healing has already begun.

This is the deep theological truth we call “the now and the not yet” of the Kingdom of God.

In Jesus, the reign and power of God is already here—healing, restoring, redeeming.

And yet, we still wait for the day it will all be made complete.

Healing is happening now—
In obvious ways.
In hidden ways.
Through Jesus’ presence,
And the quiet work of the Spirit.

Family, that’s the mystery of healing in this life. Sometimes it happens in an instant. Sometimes it unfolds through time, community, medicine, or grace. And sometimes—it doesn’t come the way we hoped, at all.

But Jesus is still a healer.
Healing begins in His presence.
And it ends in His presence.

And that’s why we hold on to hope. Not because every story wraps up beautifully, but because every story will—because in Jesus’ presence, we are in the presence of the King. And all will be well.

One Woman’s Story

That reminds me of a woman who caught this truth in the darkest of times.

Her name was Julian of Norwich, a deeply spiritual Christian woman who lived in the 1300s during a time of extraordinary suffering. The bubonic plague pandemic—known as the Black Death—swept through England multiple times. Fear, loss, and upheaval were everywhere.

Julian herself became gravely ill—so sick, in fact, that a priest came to give her last rites. Yet in that place of weakness and fear, she had a series of profound visions of Jesus.

Later, she wrote them down in what became the first known English book written by a woman: Revelations of Divine Love.

She didn’t pretend suffering wasn’t real. She integrated life’s pain with Christ’s deep presence and comfort. And in the midst of it all, she wrote how she heard Jesus whisper these words in her spirit:

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

This has become a very famous quote down through the centuries. Songs have been written about the same theme.

But she didn’t repeat those words because life was easy—she repeated them because Jesus was present. And His presence brought peace that surpassed understanding.

That’s the hope we hold on to:

In the now and not yet,
He is with us.
And because He is with us,
we too can say:
All IS well,
and all SHALL BE well.

So how do we live into that right now? By drawing near to His presence and experiencing His peace.

One way to do that is through the practice of imaginative prayer we have been doing every week during this series.

So as we close this series, I want to invite you to enter into Jesus’ presence again through a guided prayer exercise—using our imaginations to meet Jesus with our whole selves—our senses, body, mind, heart, and spirit.

Scripture says:
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy… (Psalm 16:11)

Let’s enter into that joy together, beginning with a deep breath... and slowly letting it out.

Now, with your eyes closed, picture a place that brings you joy. It could be from your past or a place you’ve imagined. A beach. A mountaintop. A quiet room. A garden. Somewhere you feel safe, alive, at peace.

Now engage your senses:
What do you see?
What sounds surround you?
What smells or textures are present?

Now notice that Jesus is there. He’s not far. He’s near. Maybe walking toward you or sitting beside you. He’s smiling—delighted to be with you. Maybe He is embracing you? Laughing with you? Maybe He’s taking your hand and gently saying, “Walk with Me”?

Listen more attentively as He speaks to you, maybe it’s a word of joy, a gentle reminder, or simply your name spoken with love.

Let Him bring to mind a memory, a moment, or a promise.

Now hear Him say:
“In My presence, there is fullness of joy.  You may still be waiting on healing. You may still carry sorrow. But I’m here right now—let joy rise.”

Rest in His presence, family.
His presence is enough.

All is well. All shall be well.
Because healing begins and ends in His presence.

As we conclude this morning, let the words of the song Healer seep into your spirit as our prayer.

You hold my every moment.
You calm my raging seas.
You walk with me through fire,
and heal all my disease.
I trust in You…
I believe You’re my Healer.

Jesus, You’re all I need.

Let this not just be a song we enjoy,
but a truth we live:

Healing begins and ends in His presence.
Let’s pray.