Do You Want To Be Healed? - Thresholds

A piece of my story, where I was given a choice to seek deep healing & a new life, or to turn back.

Trigger Warning:

The following piece is a memoir of my journey with chronic illness and what I have come to call my “slow burn N.D.E..” It entails a moment where I weighed out my will to survive. I was not (and have never been) suicidal, but this piece touches on themes that echo that tone.

If you are sensitive to such things, pause, take a few deep breaths and ask the deep place within you if this piece is for you.

If you’d prefer to read something more positive, I’ve got you covered with this dive:

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Threshold

“Do you want to be healed?”

That was the question he asked me.

I was in my bed, like always, for the past 2 years. I was in my 20’s having recently graduated from college only to collapse into an illness that brought my life to a crushing halt.

Yet the vision within me was unmistakable.

He spoke with a weight that cut through everything and landed in my core. A weight that brought a sacred kind of stillness to my being.

I stood on a threshold. I could feel that this moment would determine whether I walked through a door into a new life, or turned back to the life I had before.

I stood there, feeling the weight of the moment… His glowing eyes pierced me as he held my gaze. He waited for my answer. Whichever I chose, I needed to mean it.

I knew this moment was significant, but the choice was made in an instant. The smoke of my old life was still wafting in my nose. There was no going back, because I had no life to go back to… My only option was forward, into the unknown, into something that I hoped would be better than what I had left behind.

So I looked him in the face as something within me sharpened like the edge of a dagger.

“Yes,” I told him.

“Are you sure?” he pressed.

Suddenly my emotions began to feel like a multi-car pileup on a highway. Why would he ask that?! What does that mean? Wouldn’t he-

His words continued, cutting off my train of thought. “It will take a long time, and it will be much more difficult than you think.”

My stomach lurched. I had been sure just a moment ago…but now? What kind of difficulty would warrant such a warning? Wouldn’t he want me to take his offer? Yet, here he was, cautioning me instead. I took his warning seriously. It made me hesitate, considering what that might mean, and wondering, “just how hard is ‘more difficult than you think?’ Will I be strong enough to make it through the process?”

I began to understand his meaning, this process was going to require change, my life had collapsed for a reason. Meaning the only way to become whole again was to move forward into something different than before. Even though I had no idea what that would mean in practice.

Once again, the tinge of smoke wafted in my nose as I looked around at an imagined landscape filled with the ruins of my life. I faced only two options. The first was to stay where I was, sick to the point of being non-functional and a burden to my family. As far as I could see, there was no restoration in sight…

I had even wondered if this illness could take me… What would happen if I let it do that very thing? Who would miss me, would I leave a hole in anyone’s life? Even more importantly, what did I even have left to live for?

I knew my family would be devastated. But would my friends? Or anyone else for that matter? I’d already been “gone” for two years, unable to participate in social activities, or anything else. I often feared they would move on without me. If I got better, would there still be space in their life for me by then? I began to wonder who would come to my funeral. What would they say about me?

I didn’t want to hurt my family. We had lost a grandparent in a traumatic way earlier in my life, so I knew the kind of impact such things had on people. But I couldn’t stay just because of that… Living on like this wasn’t much better than leaving them for good, not when I was only a shell. I had no life anymore, and avoidance of causing pain wasn’t reason enough to keep me here.

As I sat there weighing things out, something in me stiffened. This wasn’t how I wanted to go out! I still wanted to do something… I felt as though I hadn’t accomplished whatever it was that I came here for, though I had no idea what that might be.

My thoughts turned to a friend, someone who has truly loved me. I began to realize I loved him too, though I’d never been able to admit it to myself. I wanted to fight, I felt like I’d barely gotten started in this thing called life. I needed something to get better for.

A vision of another life began to unfold in my mind, a faint possibility. I was staring through the threshold, peering into the other side, which offered me a small glimpse of a new life.

I wondered how painful the transition might be, as a knot of anxiety sat in my stomach. It didn’t seem often that the divine gave warnings before embarking on a path. Yet, my resolve hardened again.

I repeated my answer, knowing it was something that couldn’t be undone. “Yes.”

~~~

Moments like these have taken hold of my life before. Whenever they do, they have marked my life and changed my trajectory, often closing a path behind so that I can never go back… This was the second time I’d had a vision asking me to choose this path. I wondered at it. What could be so significant that I would need to walk through more than one threshold to set foot on this path? I knew something weighty must be happening, but that felt like the only thing I understood at the time…

I grew up in the church, raised by two parents who were passionate about permeating every area of their lives with their newly found faith. Soon after their discovery of a “Jesus-led life,” I was born into their lives. I should have entered to the announcement of “it’s a girl!” Instead, my first act in life was to shock both my parents and the midwife as I entered the world still wrapped in “the veil,” my amniotic sac still intact around me. My strange arrival meant they had to peel back the “caul” to allow me to breathe, revealing a daughter who dwelled in her own world…

As it turned out, being born “en-caul” is an exceptionally rare type of birth, said by many ancient cultures to mark the birth of a “seer,” someone who reaches behind the veil. This meant that I was able to sense spiritual beings throughout my life. Though, when I was young, I did not always have language and a framework to fully comprehend what I was experiencing at the time. But that didn’t stop these encounters from impacting me deeply.

I also carried a pre-birth memory of a loving Creator who belonged to me, and I to him. I could always feel his love and light over me. This made it easy for my young mind to become enmeshed into church where people claimed to follow the God I was experiencing. When people at church told me they loved God, I believed them without question, because I loved him.

When I entered high school, I began playing in a band and soon was the lead singer in our church’s worship team. There was a young man, Flynn* who oversaw several bands at the large mega-church where my family attended. He too was someone touched by mystery, like me. He recognized that I was different, and took me under his wing. Though I suspect he too lacked a framework to fully understand the ways that he and I differed from the crowd.

Flynn offered me an internship. This was an early threshold moment in my life and I excitedly stepped through the door having no idea of the implications it held… I was young, filled with hopes and energy for a bright future.

But a year after my internship started, Flynn left without warning. His bride to be had called off their wedding just weeks before the date. Overnight, I found myself managing several rotating bands in his stead. Everyone expected Flynn to return after some personal time, but he never did. I was devastated at losing him. But my youthful resilience paid off. Eventually I began to sprout my own set of wings as I grew into the role, taking the ministry even further than before. Soon I was thriving on the opportunities and challenges it afforded me.

During this development, my spiritual side became more apparent, bringing me uncanny success. Church leadership began taking note and the pastor became disturbed at the unexplainable abilities that guided my decisions. Though he claimed to be a spiritual leader, it became apparent that his top priority was simply to maintain institutional control. I was quickly becoming a threat in his eyes. The ground beneath my feet began to tremor. But I didn’t recognize the signs of the oncoming earthquake that would soon tear down the walls around me.

~~~

Fast-forward a few years. I had been kicked out of the church where I was the full-time director of a thriving music program. I had been falsely accused of many things, including stealing keys to the pastor’s office so that I could read his private files about congregants. They told me that was the only possible explanation for how I could inexplicably “know things” about people…

The church staff was also upset that the spirit was palpable when I would lead worship. It turns out many pastors want only religion and head knowledge. Spiritual experiences that go beyond a mere flutter here, and a twinkle there, are snuffed out within their controlling framework. I began to realize this was the same reason why Flynn had left so suddenly. He too had been persecuted for his spiritual tendencies, and when an opportunity to leave while maintaining a positive sheen on his resume presented itself, he took it.

As the persecution began, so did my questions about many of the things the church teaches. I began to call into question the very framework of what we call “church” itself. The more questions I let myself consider, the more disturbed I became…

After my church-eviction, I played for a large variety of churches across multiple denominations. I kept hoping to find something different, something better. But nothing was different enough. Many churches weren’t much better than the one I had left behind. They all felt like clones wearing different T-shirts. Slightly different at first glance, but underneath… just more of the same…

The problem was further complicated by the fact that I had planned to lead worship as a career. I didn’t go away to college like my friends did, I took online classes and opted for hands-on experience. Preferring to build a strong resume while ticking the college box. I had exceeded my goals, but now it did me no good, since I no longer wanted to participate in church. My plans had hit a dead-end and I wasn’t sure where to go next.

Soon after, a family crisis followed. Instead of getting a random job and trying to establish myself as an independent, and soon-to-be-graduated adult. I suddenly wanted to be at home, helping my family through an incredibly difficult time.

Meanwhile, my own burdens were dragging me down.

I had lost much of my community when I was kicked out of the church.

My reputation had been dragged through the mud by a plethora of false accusations and rumors.

I was losing the religious framework that I had grown up with.

My career path forward was uncertain.

Many of my friends had moved away.

And now my family was crumbling too…

Depression began to creep in. The kind that begins to sap strength from your very soul. Fatigue came with it, soon becoming my constant companion. And my voice, which felt silenced by the church, began to give out too, as mysterious cases of laryngitis left me unable to sing or speak more often than not for over a year. Doctors were unable to identify a cause. The descent had begun… and the walls of the pit were cool and slippery as my footing gave way...

~~~

Years had since passed from that cool descent, and my bed had become my permanent residence. My body had collapsed under chronic fatigue, with several complications, including a long-term, misdiagnosed infection. I was barely graduated from college and a former dancer, yet somehow I was too tired to walk up a flight of stairs without stopping to sit and take a breather. Mainstream medical had done nothing but fail me. In fact, their drugs had made things worse... And I wondered if my life would ever be normal or happy again.

And that’s when he found me…

It was Jesus, staring me in the face as his mysterious words echoed through my hollow frame. His expression filled with empathy, but also opportunity.

“Dooo youuuuu waaanT. To-get-well?”

“What kind of question is that?” I could have asked. But I didn’t. I held there, totally still, allowing myself to feel something. I stared at his eyes, unflinching. The smoke from my life wafting in my nose. As if I needed a reminder of how utterly destroyed it was…

I knew my answer had to hold weight, I needed to mean it. So I pulled together the resolve that had been scattered throughout my inner landscape and my eyes became tenacious, like a wolf’s.

“Yes,” I told him.

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*I have changed the name of my worship mentor to protect his privacy.

Why I Chose to Share

One of the reasons why I wanted to share this encounter is that I was told during a later dive, that each of us has a moment in their life where they too are asked if they want to be healed. The experience does not always come in such a visceral manner, but the question is there whispering inside of you all the same… Moments like these bring us to a threshold. There we must decide if we desire to be whole strongly enough to pay a price for it.

Healing usually comes with change, and while that change is often for our good, it can be painful. We may have to move on from toxic relationships, change our lifestyle, or make other sacrifices to step into wholeness. This is where the question comes into play: do you want to be healed - or would you rather keep things as they are? But it doesn’t feel as simple as it sounds.

There is usually a reason why we have stayed.

And there is usually a reason why something in our lives is bleeding.

That is when we must weigh out the question in our own hearts… Do we like our life the way that it is? Or do we wish to do the work, to lay those reasons aside and step into a new life?

If you are reading this, I hope these words give you courage to step through the threshold into your own healing. I can attest that while the journey is difficult, it is also rewarding, and there are heavenly beings who are willing to help us. If that’s you, this is my prayer of blessing for angels (and other spirits) to come and strengthen you for your journey.

Blessings,

Willow

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Inside the city…was the pool… Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

John 5:2-6 NET

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Join the Conversation

Have you had a threshold moment in your own life?

Or a time where you choose to walk the path of the mystic?

I'd like to hear about it in the comments.

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If you’d like to hear more about my journey of healing you can read My Story: Scars & Spoils.

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