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Have you ever had a random thought just pass through your mind and you can’t seem to let it go?  You try to focus on something else.  You try to do something else.  But your mind keeps coming back to that random thought?

You finally give in to your mind and you wander down the rabbit hole, that is your seemingly random thought.  Seemingly, because as you drift in contemplation, you realize that this random thought isn’t that random at all.  In some way, shape or form, this thought is connected to something, somewhere, someway in your present life.  Maybe in a way that you’re immediately aware.  Or maybe in a way that you have to process and piece together. 

That’s what happened to me.  I got caught in a thought loop about the healings of Jesus.  The specific situations of his healings.  And the people that he healed.  I wandered around and around the stories of and the specific details of, his healings. 

Jesus never seemed to heal every person in the exact same way.  It wasn’t like Jesus had a magic spell that he would simply cast, to heal each and every single person he encountered.  For some he forgave their sins.  For some he used his spit.  And for some he was simply present.      

Then, because I had been spending my time recently studying the concept of connection, I realized something that was the same in all of Jesus healings.  Whether it was leprosy, bleeding, blindness or some crippling malady, Jesus healed each person both physically, as well as connectionally. 

Jesus not only healed their bodies, he also healed their relationships.  He gave people the ability to see, hear and walk.  But he also gave people the ability to reestablish a connection with the community.

For, in Jesus’ day, people who were sick or lame, were treated like outcasts.  Pushed to the fringes of society.  Unable to interact and participate in normal, everyday life.  They were relegated to begging and considered to be unclean and untouchable.

Because of Jesus, they not only received the gift of healing in their physical life.  They also received the gift of healing in their connectional life.  They were able, some for the very first time in their lives, to participate in the community.  They could go to the synagogue.  They could shop in the market and go to the well, with everyone else.  They no longer had to walk around and announce that they were “unclean”.

I’m a person who takes connection for granted.  In fact, there have been times when I have dreamed of not being as connected as I’m blessed to experience on a daily basis.  The dream of living, not forever but for an extended period of time, on a deserted island.  Life with nobody but me and my wife.

Yet, my senses and the example of Jesus healings, have taught me that I can’t live forever without connection.  Connection is an essential component of a happy, healthy life.  Connection is vital to experiencing the peace that surpasses all understanding.