The role of integrity in healing

It was a sterling example of integrity—his and hers. On his way to the home of a synagogue official named Jairus, Christ Jesus stopped to identify and attend to someone in the crowd surrounding him. A woman had touched the hem of his clothes in her desperate search for healing. She was considered unclean because of her long-standing illness, and religious law prohibited her from coming in contact with anyone. When she came forward to Jesus, she fearfully but honestly admitted that she had touched him and been healed. Jesus lovingly said to her, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague” (Mark 5:34).

This Bible story shows two sides of integrity, and both are important in healing. One is the morality expressed by the woman’s faith, honesty, and resolve. The other, and higher, meaning of integrity is what Jesus gave to the woman—an understanding of herself as whole, free from sin and disease. 

The message “Be whole” speaks to us, too. Much around us—relationships, government, health, and so on—can feel broken. We yearn to repair what’s troubling us. And, like the woman, we can trust our pure desire for good to guide us to Christ, God’s healing message to human consciousness assuring us that we and all are already whole.