Be Well

I read this post that Allie, Dearest wrote the other day.  Her thoughts on being broken struck me, and drew to mind an ongoing conversation I've had the last few years with a dear friend.

We've been talking for a couple of years now about the passage where Jesus heals the lame man lying beside the pool.

Jesus asks a question of this man that is rather confusing and even haunting, "Do you want to be well?"

Seems like a crazy question, doesn't it?  The man has been laying by the pool for decades, never quite able to make it to the waters when they are stirred and miracles are possible.  Clearly he's after healing if he's spent so much time there, isn't he?

I think about that question sometimes when I consider my own life.  I think about how much time I spend hovering around the edges of "being well."  I think about how sometimes, even though it's miserable, broken seems a like better option.  It's familiar. Safe even.  How I can talk about wanting healing, but I'm sure not making any steps towards it.  Even when it's an open door in front of me.

I have a friend who was with me the night I was healed from depression.  He'd been around through some of the worst of it, and was patient.  I'm thankful that he was there that night.  For probably two years I'd been griping about my misery and fear and depression as he drove me home from various church events.  For two years he'd been quietly asking if he could pray for and with me, inviting me to come before God with him.  For two years I let fear rule the day.  "You can pray, but I'm not going to.  You can pray, but I'm going into the house now.  No, we're not praying tonight."  The night I was healed the desperation caught up to me, and even though I was scared of God, I was more afraid of continuing the miserable, hopeless and meaningless existence that I'd been inhabiting.  My friend was with me when I went from saying "I want to be well" to really and truly meaning it deep within me, and God met us in that place and healed my heart in ways that still leave me speechless, nearly five years later.

I've thought of that question of Jesus quite a lot again lately, as the ongoing conversation around that question has continued.  As I have had to be in the place of lifting my aching heart towards Jesus and really considering, "do I want to be well?"  Will I trust Jesus again with the process of healing, however it looks this time, whatever the results?  Do I trust Jesus with all of the others around me who are also broken, who I also want to be well?  Do I trust that he's big enough for all of that?

I've come over and over again to the conclusion that I really do want to be well.  And that I want that - physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, for so many others as well.  And that this is a question I will most likely be pondering and finding new depths to for the rest of my life.

"Do you want to be well?"