Amy Julia Becker
Herald Press, 180 pages | March 15, 2022
“The only way healing happens is if the love goes deeper than the wound.”
Amid pandemic weariness, these words were a balm to Amy Julia Becker. In To Be Made Well, Becker shares this much-needed wisdom, acquired through youthful eating disorders, psychological issues that often manifested as chronic pain, and as a mom to a little girl with Down syndrome.
Becker’s experiences make her uniquely qualified to encourage fellow sufferers, offering hope, practical suggestions and compassionate words to soothe the pain inflicted by bad theology and the well-intentioned/ill-informed. She reflects on biblical healing stories, using the bleeding woman of Mark 5 (healed when she touched Jesus’ cloak), to explore healing as wholeness and as full restoration to the community, to oneself and, ultimately, to God.
To Be Made Well resists easy answers. When emotional or spiritual issues are the underlying cause of physical pain, Becker never shames the one who suffers. Love can always go deeper than old wounds, particularly for those struggling with a terminal illness. Becker offers that mending relationships and making peace is a kind of healing available to those for whom physical healing in this world is not to be.
She concludes with a brief nod to practical efforts that can help us love our imperfect bodies such as embodied prayer or breathing techniques — just what we need, if we, like her, yearn to be made well.
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