Inspired by a devotional I read regularly, I’ve been spending a little time with Saint Julian of Norwich (c. 1343 - 1416). Julian is best known for the sixteen visions she had when gravely ill, during what we’d now call a near-death experience (NDE). She later described them in "Revelations of Divine Love." What a precious, instructive treasure this little visit with Julian has been. And what a fine treasure is this little takeaway, “all is well,” Jesus gave Julian during vision #13.
All is DEFINITELY Not Well
I especially like the fact that Christ affirmed this to Julian amid the Black Death, “Peasant’s Revolt,” Christian persecution, and the generally lousy medieval times while Julian was deathly ill. Some speculate that Julian was also a widow who’d lost her husband and children to the plague. In other words, everything was definitely not well in Julian’s life or anywhere else.
When Julian recovered, she promptly became an anchoress, “a woman who has set herself apart for God and lives isolated in a cell,” though people traveled from afar to receive her sage spiritual counseling through a tiny window in her quarters.
Strikingly, Julian determined to be joyful in all circumstances, just as James urged us to, “count it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1`:2) as did Jesus Himself, Paul, and others throughout the New Testament. It’s also the real-life experience of countless believers who are happiest and most serene in the worst circumstances.
Julian and a cloud of witnesses assert that this joy and peace aren’t dependent on circumstances; plague be damned. Because one day, maybe soon, Jesus will put everything…EVERYTHING…perfectly right.💯
All is Heavenly Well
This “all is well" hope is supernatural. Sometimes, it's anchored in the promise of heaven or a restored earth because something—or everything—is obviously not well at all. We seek to anchor in the sea of eternity, the place of resolution of all problems and the exquisiteness of perfect LOVE. We transcend our suffering in spirit.
Yet God assures us in Ephesians (2:6) and elsewhere that we’re already sitting right next to Jesus in the “heavenly realm” Julian visited. Right now. This is the experience of on of the subjects of Guideposts’ NDE series, Dr. C. Thomas Perry, a very theologically profound Australian college professor, who’d experienced all manner of extreme trials throughout his life.
Thomas entered the heavenly realms during his brief death and likewise during times of intense meditation thereafter (see “In the Presence of Love”). I’ve sampled these divine moments, often in moments of deep powerlessness and pain, though I’ve not (yet) been transported.
Knowing first-hand how very unwell this world can be, and after explaining to his dense disciples His imminent Passion, Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).
This overcoming peace and joy exists only in Christ, whether we experience Him here or are beamed up to the heavenlies.
The “all is well” hope transcends even chronic catastrophic medieval calamities and is often most vivid when things are least well, often in utterly baffling fashion.
Yes.
PRAYER:
Lord, Let us pray with confidence, "All shall be well." May “the peace [and joy] of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard [our] hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Please help us access this heavenly realm, even as we’re here in messy mortal life. Thank You. I love You.💖
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