Julian: Easter follows Good Friday
“And all shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be exceeding well.” Julian of Norwich
January 13, 1967, on a rainy Friday night, fifty-one years ago, I was in a car accident when I was a junior in medical school that resulted in injuries that still plague my body today. I was driving a red Volkswagen and was hit by a drunk driver in a black Cadillac making a left-hand turn into a bar. I had to leave medical school for six months to recover partially from multiple extremity fractures. I never curse the mobility issues I still face today for one reason. I dropped back into the class where I met my husband of over forty-eight years. I do believe we never would have met if I had stayed in my first medical school class. I give thanks every day for his presence in my life. Any of you who know him will understand. This is when I first became conscious of Easters coming out of Good Fridays. I know that Eastering experiences had happen before in my life and in the lives of those I knew, but I did not recognize them.
Today I see resurrections daily in my life and others, the death of my grandfather leading me back to God and my grandfather’s death leading me to stop smoking thirty-nine years ago. I see people in the grief recovery group we work with, Walking the Mourner’s Path, changing the direction of their lives, reaching out to others in need because they know how difficult tragedy is to work through. They learn how to live on honoring the life and relationship of the one they loved who died.
I daily witness and see lived out these often-quoted words from the Revelations of the English mystic of the 14th century, Julian of Norwich, “And all shall be well.”
Joanna joannaseibert