COLUMN: Grey Matters – All will be well

“All will be well, and all will be well and all manner of thing will be well.” Julian of Norwich

Julian was born into a world that felt perpetually on the brink. Plagues swept through England multiple times during her lifetime, killing nearly half the population. Political instability and religious turmoil were constant companions. Julian, therefore, chose a life of service as an anchoress, living in a small cell attached to her church in Norwich. From this quiet place, Julian of Norwich became a spiritual anchor for countless people who sought counsel through a window in her cell wall.

Six hundred years on, Julian of Norwich remains one of the most luminous voices in Christianity. Living in 14th century England – a world shaken by plague, famine, and social upheaval – she offered a message so gentle and yet so radical that it still resonates across the centuries: “All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well.” This was not a shallow maxim of comfort. It was the distilled essence of a profound spiritual vision, one that Julian lived out with courage, contemplation, and a fierce trust in divine love.

At age 30, Julian fell gravely ill and believed she was near death. During this time, she received a series of vivid spiritual visions—what she called her “showings.” These visions centered on the suffering Christ, but what struck Julian most was not pain or judgment. It was His love. She came to understand God and Jesus Christ not as a distant ruler but as an intimate, nurturing presence, even describing Christ as a mother whose love enfolds creation. From these visions emerged her most famous insight: that despite the brokenness of the world, divine love ultimately brings everything together.

As people kept coming to her cell, Julian listened and prayed. She offered counsel rooted in the same assurance she had received in her visions. Her calm presence became a quiet rebellion against the despair around her. To live as Julian did is to believe that love is stronger than fear, that God is nearer than suffering, and that hope is more enduring than catastrophe. Her cell was small, but her vision was vast.

When I make my rounds as a hospital chaplain, I see the difference such a view can make in a patient’s life. Those that have tasted and know deeply the love of God are usually much more at peace with their suffering and impending death. Even when our bodies are filled with pain, it is love that enfolds our very being. We can prepare for the hard times by learning how to live in the divine love of God like Julian.

While it would be wonderful to be able to visit her and ask these pressing questions on how to do what she embodied, we can read her writings in Revelations of Divine Love – the oldest surviving English-language book written by a woman. There are even some recent devotional books that play off this idea of visiting Julian with titles such as 365 Days with Julian and 30 Days with Julian. At the very least, when life is feeling overwhelming, we could recite her famous line of ‘all will be well, and all will be well, and all matter of things will be well”. Above and beneath the dissonance of life there is a deeper harmony that will one day be known.

Julian of Norwich did not promise that life would be easy. She promised something far more daring: that in the fullness of time, ‘all will be well’—not because the world is gentle, but because love is ultimate. Her life invites us to imagine a world where hope is not fragile but is foundationally strong, where suffering is real but not final, and where the last word belongs to God’s love.

Gary Dyck is a chaplain and spiritual care provider at a hospital and personal care home in the Southeast.