Jesus “stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up immediately and waited on them.” Luke 4:39
The story of Simon’s mother-in-law has so many layers of warmth and depth. In Luke’s gospel, Simon has not yet even been called to follow Jesus, but he is a believer enough that Jesus has come to heal his wife’s mother. It gives me a wonderful picture of Simon and his wife and his love of his family that he wants to make his wife happy and his mother-in-law better.
But it is the un-named mother-in-law, who offers today’s powerful example for me. When Jesus comes to her bedside and “rebukes” the fever she gets up and begins to serve them. This is what the mother-in-law has done her entire life, served the people who came into her house, and now Simon’s house.
For those who are sick, healing lets us feel well again so we can take up our lives and feel like ourselves again. This is what Jesus offered the mother-in-law. He healed her so she could be who she really was again.
It’s that same healing Jesus offers us when we don’t feel like ourselves. When our lives are out of balance and confusing and we feel like we have lost touch with our most authentic self, Jesus offers us a healing that can help us “find ourselves” again.
I struggle against healing sometimes, and don’t always want the healing Jesus offers. What would happen if I was healed and my life was healthier? I’ve lost touch with my most authentic self - and maybe I am more comfortable clinging to the unhealthy life that I already know. I am afraid of being healed. In what ways might I be called to serve if I was healthy?
All I have to do to change my life, to rediscover my most authentic self, is to look up to Jesus, waiting next to me. I will be healed when I allow myself to see his loving and warm gaze and his arm outstretched. He longs for me to stand next to him, fully alive and healthy, just the way I was created.
It is then I can begin to pick up my life and being to serve.
Maureen McCann Waldron
The most important part of my life is my family – Jim my husband of 47 years and our two children. Our daughter Katy, a banker here in Omaha, and her husband John, have three wonderful children: Charlotte, Daniel and Elizabeth Grace. Our son Jack and his wife, Ellie, have added to our joy with their sons, Peter and Joseph.
I think family life is an incredible way to find God, even in (or maybe I should say, especially in) the most frustrating or mundane moments.
I am a native of the East Coast after graduating in 1971 from Archbishop John Carroll High School in suburban Philadelphia. I graduated from Creighton University in 1975 with a degree in Journalism and spent most of the next 20 years in corporate public relations in Omaha. I returned to Creighton in the 1990s and completed a master’s degree in Christian Spirituality in 1998.
As our children were growing up, my favorite times were always family dinners at home when the four of us would talk about our days. But now that our kids are gone from home, my husband and I have rediscovered how nice it is to have a quiet dinner together. I also have a special place in my heart for family vacations when the kids were little and four of us were away from home together. It’s a joy to be with my growing family.
Writing a Daily Reflection is always a graced moment, because only with God’s help could I ever write one. I know my own life is hectic, disjointed and imperfect and I know most of us have lives like that. I usually write from that point of view and I always seem to find some sentence, some word in the readings that speaks right to me, in all of my imperfection. I hope that whatever I write is in some way supportive of others.
It’s an incredibly humbling experience to hear from someone who was touched by something I wrote. Whether the note is from someone across campus or across the world, it makes me realize how connected we are all in our longing to grow closer to God.
