Veronica

.Written by Susan Stedman

     I don’t know how many of you have been watching “The Chosen” series about the life of Jesus. I hope everyone is because it is the most wonderful, amazing show I have ever seen. Make sure you have plenty of tissue with you because the tears always flow. From the very first episode where Jesus calls Mary by her real name, which only her father had done in childhood, to the latest episode with the healing of the woman with the twelve-year issue of blood, those two episodes mean so much to me that I can barely share it.
     After a year of suffering, I was diagnosed with vertigo in 2012. There are days when all I can do is lie still with my eyes closed, unable to drive or work. Not only have I lived with the disabling dizziness, but with the fear of it coming on at any time. I can say that the fear was just as debilitating as the condition. It would hit most often when I laid down to sleep…a sudden feeling of tilting or rolling. I would shout and grab whatever I could hold onto because I was afraid of falling out of bed. Once it hit, I was down until I could take meds and sleep it off.
     Sunday night, January 8, 2023, my husband and I watched the episode “Clean, Part Two.” I sympathized with the lady who had the issue of blood because in 2010, I had that problem so badly that I nearly died and had to have an emergency hysterectomy and nine blood transfusions to save my life. As the episode drew near the end, the woman followed Jesus, trying so desperately to touch the hem of his garment because she had faith that doing that would heal her. Just as in the scriptures, as soon as she touched Him, He felt it and turned. I was crying my heart out because I could feel vertigo coming on as I watched. All I could think was, “If I could just touch Him, I could be healed of this!"
     Lovingly, Jesus knelt down to her – I was crying so hard I could barely see the screen – and He told her that it was not the cloth she touched, but it was her faith that healed her. I’m not sure what came over me, but I felt that Jesus was speaking to me directly. I always wavered before, not having enough faith to sustain me, but seeing it played out before me was proof that it really was true, what He said. Not what was on TV, but what the Bible said. I prayed and declared my intention. I was afraid to say anything to anyone – sort of hedging my bets – but I realized it was that doubt that had always held my faith back. On Wednesday morning, I told my husband. By then, I had not had vertigo in three days. It had never stayed away so long. A hint of it washed over me a couple of times like it was trying to reassert itself, but I refused it out loud, reclaiming the healing, and when I resisted it, it went away. 
     On that Wednesday night, I learned something that blew me away. The Bible doesn’t mention the woman by name, but on the show, they named her. When my mother was pregnant with me, my father wanted to name me Veronica. He loved that name and called me that most of her pregnancy, I am told that my mother did not like it. My father had never finished high school and, although he was a mechanical genius, he was not very literate. Mother said, “If you can spell it, we will name her that.” So, sadly for him, I was named Susan.
     I was reading about the episode, and I discovered that the woman was called “Veronica.” To me, it was so much like Mary in the first episode, not being called that name except by her father, living a lie as an unclean person, until her real Father called her by name and said, “I have redeemed you, you are mine.”

Update: One week later, still no vertigo. I can sleep on my right side, which I could not do, and I can roll over onto my back, which I haven’t been able to do in years. AMEN!