Genesis 28:10-22 / Matthew 9:18-26
The circumstances that led Jacob to leave Beersheba for Haran, that we heard in the 1st reading, was far from anything exciting or adventurous.
With the help of his mother Rebekah, Jacob was actually fleeing from his brother Esau, from whom he stole the birthright and blessings.
And if we bother to read the whole story, then we will see that there was a lot of cheating, manipulating, lying and deception.
There was nothing edifying about all this and we might even wonder why it was recorded in the Sacred Scripture in the first place.
And neither was did the place that Jacob stopped over for the night have anything special about it.
Yet it was there that God revealed Himself to Jacob.
But we can reflect deeper on what Jacob exclaimed: Truly the Lord is in this place and I never knew it!
And as far as we are concerned, the places that we find ourselves in are certainly nothing special, and our situations and circumstances might be far from anything edifying or motivating.
As it was in the case of the official and the woman suffering from haemorrhage that we heard about in the gospel.
But they had the faith to believe that God was there in their situations.
Indeed God is with us in the ordinary places that we are in and more so God is with us in the adverse situations of our lives.
May we, like Jacob, also realise that God is with us, and that He is always with us in whatever situations and circumstances that we face in life.