Open Wide Your Heart and Let God In
Last fall, I found myself in great desolation. I had been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease a year before, and despite taking oral medication for it, I experienced my first flare-up. When August came, I was unable to eat without lights-out abdominal pain and discomfort that put me out of commission. I did not know what was wrong; I went on and off steroids and had another colonoscopy. I certainly didn’t know this would be the beginning of an 11-month-long roller coaster ride in search of healing.
Some time later, I was working in Jackson, Wyoming at an art gallery when my best friend came to visit me on his way to New York for his postulant year with the CFRs. He told me he was working with Jackie Mulligan, the founder of Reform Wellness. Although I was skeptical at first, the notion of Christ-centered holistic wellness stirred my heart, and my poor gut, in a way I could not ignore.
When I spoke with Jackie, I was profoundly moved by her faith. I decided to begin Reform Online LIVE—but I had only gone through the first session when my health started to decline dramatically. By the next session, my body was days away from shutting down again, and one week later, I was hospitalized. It felt as though the Lord was asking me to “take a seat.” At that moment, I chose to open my heart to how the Lord wanted to work in my life and through my journey toward healing.
After leaving the hospital, I started from square one. I finished Reform Online LIVE over the next few months at my own pace, and I made it my mission to re-learn how to eat, sleep, pray, live in peace, and take care of my body. Through Reform, I was given the opportunity and the tools to make the best choices that I could during the most important time of healing and rebuilding I have yet experienced. This program is defined by prayer and community, so even though I had to make up classes later, I found a group of women who held me up in prayer when I needed it most. Most importantly, through Reform, I was able to learn to love myself as God loves me, and I am becoming fully integrated and alive in Christ, my courage, my strength, and my Savior.
This process of becoming myself in the Lord will continue for the rest of my life. Jackie’s accompaniment during this time profoundly impacted my ability to invite the Lord into my physical healing. Thanks to Reform and Jackie’s choice to surrender this ministry into the hands of Jesus and Our Blessed Mother, receiving the gift of my body has opened my heart to experience God’s fullness of joy in every facet of life.
—Anja Renkes
Jackson, WY