Jesus Isn’t the Only One Who Can Help Us Remember our Wholeness

We can help each other remember it.

Can we help each other heal, or is that too far above our human pay grade?

What about this? John 14:12.

These works and greater shall ye do.

Recently, I’ve been rather obsessed with these words.

We tend to experience whatever we fixate on.

Last week, when my state felt hot enough to cook pizza on the sidewalk, I hopped into my little backyard swimming pool, just big enough to spin in circles on an air mattress.

I noticed that day a tiny, black insect bobbing in the water. It was motionless but for the water pushing it around.

Many bugs meet their Maker in my pool. If they’re still moving, I get them out. But there’s no telling how long this one had been in there.

I put it on my fingertip and thought about how these works and greater shall ye do.

The longer I stared at the unmoving bug, the more I wanted to raise it from the dead like Jesus. It was all crumpled up and still, with only one wing. What happened to his other wing? He was making this difficult.

I stared and stared. Nothing happened. Why couldn’t I heal this insect? I genuinely wanted to know. In my mind, I asked God why I had so little power in this world. Frustrating to say the least.

No answer came, so I thought, let’s just try.

I imagined the words to say and repeated them with overt emphasis in my mind:

Move, little bug. You’re okay. Move! I want you to live. I care about you. Don’t die in this water. You’re not meant for this chlorinated environment. It’s toxic for you. Please. Look alive. Just live!

Should I say please? Did it sound too feminine and weak? Should I lean in and assert myself more strongly like in a business meeting? Was this a business meeting with God?

Wait, I’m in a pool. God generally prefers politeness. Yay.

I said please again.

It didn’t matter. The creature didn’t budge on my fingertip.

Live! Rise up!

It kept not moving.

Vision has power.

In 2017, a month before my mom passed, her body was stiff with arthritis. Her physical therapist had advised her to keep walking.

It was like saying, “Keep jumping out of airplanes.”

One afternoon, I stood with my mom on one end of the short hallway in my house. She clutched her walker with white-knuckle desperation.

Her close friend had told her over and over, “Don’t fall. Don’t fall.” Of course, falling was now stuck in her mind’s eye.

Standing beside her, her fear was contagious. I caught it like a virus. I saw and felt her feelings of feebleness, and I couldn’t envision how she’d take a single step. I’d rolled her there in her wheel chair so no walking had yet occurred.

As we stood there, a strange thing happened. I saw in my mind her younger self.

She’d grown up on a wheat ranch, flinging her body onto horses, playing ice hockey, roller skating, climbing mountains and walking thousands of miles in 84 years.

Yet here she was, frozen stuck.

My vision cleared right there beside her. I snapped out of her fear and saw right through it. I knew her. I remembered her essence.

“Mom, you know how to walk, remember?” I said softly. “You’ve done it your whole life. Try to remember. How many times have you walked this hallway the past ten years? Hundreds? You can walk. I’m sure of it.”

Startled, she came out of her nightmare and looked at me with a strange expression, as though she’d forgotten I was there.

Though still fearful, part of her was now in the room, considering my words.

“Ready? Let’s do it. You can walk.”

She looked at me for final verification. I nodded.

She focused. Slowly, one foot slid out a few inches. She carefully shifted her weight and slid the other foot out. And then again. And once more.

With each shuffle, she moved forward ever so slowly.

“That’s it. You’re doing it,” I said.

A bit of sweat ran down my neck. Jesus would’ve had her sprinting, I supposed. All I wanted was for her to feel her own energy long enough to remember who she was.

Remembrance of who she was as God created her was vital.

I’d seen she’d forgotten it.

I admit, it was partly a selfish motivation. I wanted to see that truth was true, that her essence was intact. She didn’t have to sky dive, but I knew she could walk. I no doubts at all. I wanted it for both of us.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

She ignored me, concentrating. Soon she lifted one foot all the way off the floor and planted it. Then the other one. She was taking regular steps!

After a few more, she reached the end of the hall. She slowly turned around and started off again.

With wide-eyed wonder, she declared, “It’s a miracle.”

Was it? Maybe so. Maybe everything we do in life is a miracle. Maybe the miracle is that we’re alive. We just forget sometimes.

We can hold space for each other.

In my pool last week, as I implored the insect on my fingertip to live…

It twitched.

Not kidding. The little guy uncrumpled. Its wings spread apart. There were two!

I was so shocked I dropped it in the water where it immediately sank.

I scooped it up, put it on the pool’s metal edge and grabbed a leaf floating in the water for it to step onto. It climbed aboard and I set it down outside the pool in shady grass.

My body was abuzz. For a split second, I imagined I’d brought the little creature back to life. The clouds parted, the sky opened up and angels descended over my Amazon pool singing Glory to God in the Highest!

In my mind. For a second.

I dove under water and came up bursting with joy.

I didn’t bring the little insect back to life. Of course not.

But it dawned on me how we can help each other heal.

We can hold space for each other.

We can see each other’s God-given strength and wholeness and share our clear vision with those who can’t quite see it. We can hold this space for them when they need time to find their sea legs.

Sometimes we can see through fear if we try. If we want to. I think it’s our God-given super power and we’re supposed to use it as much as we can, because sometimes God works through us if we want to help out.

It makes sense, given that we’re all right here together. As God created us.