Do you want to be healed?

“When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’”

Courtney, do you want to get well? Answer this, honestly.

Here’s what I want healing for:

A healed mind. Where I can sleep at night and not have my mind racing about things I need to do or did that day. The ability to stop thinking about food. The ability to be fully me before my Mom and unashamed; to cry withher and talk with her and embrace her. To be real together. The ability to stop sinning. To not even have a dirty thought enter my head. To not despair. For despair to be so far from me that I can’t remember the days of darkness, of freshman year, of last semester, the sleepless nights where all I can do is groan. To not have to grasp grasp grasp for jesus each morning because I’ve already forgotten what it’s like to be in glory, to be in your presence. To not have to descend to earth’s mediocrity. To not settle. To truly KNOW, from my earlobes to my pinky toe, that I am forgiven; that freshman year’s angry outbursts are wiped away, that last week’s selfish ambition is erased, the way the shore smooths over stones,to not be so into myself when other people are talking; to want to listen to others always and DELIGHTING in this. To be so open and vulnerable, the way a naked woman is before her husband; to be open to God’s intimate leading, his exciting adventure for me. To not want control over my life, but to yield it all to Him. (it’s funny, because deep down photojournalism the Career-the Title-the Status isn’t anywhere in my deepest desires).

But this is what is:

I would like to do things without exalting those things…I would like to be able to take pictures without exalting myself and FORGETTING my status as a child of the king. I want to be able to remember the things I forgot before the fall…how to walk on water, that I am valued because God is my Father, how to sense the emotions of the angels, how to climb trees and jump into the water thousands of feet below without being smashed against the rocks, how to speak in ancient tongues, how to have faith like a little child, how to let my imagination run run run unfettered, how to create stories upon stories, how to dance before nations and tribes without self-consciousness, how to hunger after food that is not sweet or artificial, but nourishing and that tastiest food I could ever imagine, how to daydream and not feel guilty about “wasting time” because there will be everlasting time and no minutes will ever be wasted “doing nothing” because there is all the time in the world, to be able to time-travel and tesseract, to visit other planets, to read and learn forever.

I want healing from short-sightedness. I am spiritually blind; I cannot see what I once saw, before the Fall of Man. I want healing from spiritual paralysis; I cannot walk on water, I cannot dance the tango with my Lord; I cannot even touch Him without shriveling and dying of fright; I want healing for my spiritual psychosis; I have a mental disease that makes me hunger after temporary, moldy bread of this world and it makes my stomach reject Real Food, True Bread. And what I need healing from the most is that I CHOSE these afflictions. When standing at the crossroads of Everlasting Life, Extended Rest, Joyful Singing, Art and Imagination, The Best School Ever, and then the road of Destruction, Half-ness, Decay, Impermanence, Instant Gratification, I chose the lesser path. It’s my fault. “Although I knew god, I neither glorified him nor gave thanks to him, and my thinking became futile and my foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:21).
So while that question, “Do you want to be healed,” seemed distant and strange to me at first, when I’m honest with myself my heart and body scream YES YES YES I want healing!!!!

And Jesus’ response to the paralyzed man, and to me?

“Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.”

Pick up all those earthly lackings that shackle you: peel away your spiritual maladies, the way you could old scabs, and watch the skin regenerate before your very eyes. All those sins that so easily entangle you daily and burden you down, just cast them aside. They’re not as heavy as you think, Courtney. Your short-sightedness, your despair, your spiritual paralysis, your inability to do the things of Paradise—unpeel them, pick them up, and put them at my Feet. And then walk—with new eyes, with a renewed mind. You can do the impossible things because I say so. But without my calling, you can do none of this.

And then:

“See, you are well again. Stop sinning.”

Praise God!!! This morning I am well. And with each encounter with Jesus, he reminds me, “See, you are well again.” He has promised me complete healing, a bodily resurrection. And I anxiously await for the day where I can soar on the wings of the angel s and can actually feel their multi-colored feathers—adorned with honeysuckle and lilac and precious gems—with my fingertips.

“Oh, the depth of the riches of
the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable h
is judgments, and his paths beyond tracing
out!
Who has known the mind of
The Lord?
Or who has been his
Counselor?
Who has ever give to God,
That god should repay him?
For from him and through him
And to him are all
Things.
To him be the glory forever!
Amen!”