All will be well. All will be well. All manner of things will be well.
Whenever I read this saying from Julian of Norwich, it puts my heart at peace. I know both theologically and from personal experience, how true these words are.
I created some cards with this saying on them ten years ago. It was during the recession. The company I'd worked with for 17 years had terminated my traveling to teach seminars with no notice and no benefits; I had a serious health challenge. Many people struggled far more than my husband and I did. God got us through as He always does.
It's ten years later and the world has a challenge that makes the previous recession seem minor in comparison.
The good news is that we have the same strong and good God. I was going over some things and remembered this saying and what an encouragement it was to me and others at that time. I have the older file of postcards I did up for people available again, plus I did up some new postcards and Instagram images—all free for you to use to encourage your congregations and friends.
Below are the sets along with the links to download them and then below them is the context of the saying and a little more about the woman who wrote it. Please make them for your people, pass them on and use them as continuing encouragements.
The orginal set of the postcards: the ZIP file for these has ready-to-print PDFs, plus editable MS Publisher files.
To download the ZIP file, click on the following link: ALL Will Be Well set of half page Editable files
INSTAGRAM Images
To download the ZIP file, click on the following link: Instagram All Will Be Well
Postcards, non-editable, ready-to-print
To download the ZIP file, click on the following link: Postcards and Images of postcards all will be well
The context of the saying by Julian Norwich
Julian of Norwich was a 14th-century mystic and contemplative. She lived through The Black Plague (originating in China, brought to England via the international trade routes of the time), which makes her words even more appropriate for us during this time of the challenges of the Covid19 virus.
Following is the passage she wrote from which the quote is taken:
And thus, in my folly, afore this time often I wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the beginning of sin was not stopped; for then, methought, all should have been well.... But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to me, answered by this word and said, Sin is unavoidable, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
For if we never fell, we should not know how feeble and how wretched we are of our self, and also we should not fully know that marvelous love of our Maker.
The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything.
God is all that is good, in my sight, and the goodness that everything has is his.
If there be anywhere on earth [where] a lover of God is always kept safe from falling, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in the same precious love.
He did not say, you will never have a rough passage, you will never be over-strained, you will never feel uncomfortable, but he did say you will never be overcome. - Julian of Norwich in Revelations of Divine Love
This current challenge is difficult, but our God hasn't changed
As difficult as it is with the current challenges of the virus, I can't imagine how terrifying it must have been for Julian and her peers when they had no understanding of how horrible diseases and plagues spread and where the ill and dying were often simply abandoned.
But here we are. Like Julian, we can take this time and use it to grow our relationship with our Lord and to bless others with what we've learned.
My prayers and encouragement are with all of you that we might trust our God that truly, "all will be well."
Please share your thoughts, comments, questions!