My One Year Anniversary of Heaven Visit

And Visiting a Healing Room (Recovery Journal 14)

Aug 29, 2025

Afterlife Recovery - One Year Out

Hi friends

I hope you are all well, and welcome to the people who’ve just recently joined us!

Last week marked my one-year anniversary of being in Heaven. It has passed very quickly. And if you follow me here in “Notes”, you learned that I’m an over…errrr, high achiever. So, of course, my first thought was “Yikes! I haven’t done enough!”

Reality says differently. God sent me back to do more work, and of course, part of the journey is figuring out what that is! LOL.

Little List of Accomplishments

(Glory to Him!)

-Most importantly, hours and hours of studying the scriptures. Many additional days spent in prayer for wisdom, next steps, discretion, for others—and also just blabbering to Jesus.

-Finished the paperback, ebook, and audiobook (audiobook just today!) of book 3 in my fiction series, Innocent Souls.

-Met with people who’ve been to Heaven and wrote up many stories—then read 30 books about it, because one glimpse of eternity is never enough.

-Talked with others in ministry or intercessory prayer—think of it as networking with heaven’s hotline operators. Read 5 books to keep up.

-Wrote the Heaven book. Still needs some work, but I am down to the pre-finish line. I started Heaven book 2. OK— that is a lot.

-Sat down with a coach or two, since learning to connect with the Holy Spirit is better than Googling ‘How to hear God’.

-Joined two prayer squads and started a prayer journal—because I actually needed to be able to find the requests when the time came to pray. And bought a lot of stickers to make it super snazzy-fun.

Do you remember the post I wrote after leaving my employer, when the Lord told me that I had all the training, etc. that I needed to move forward? He pressed rewind and replayed it for me. For a while, I hadn’t felt released to return to teaching Her Journey with ARMS that I had led for over fifteen years, so I remained on a break.

Over the past few weeks, I sensed Him clearing the way for me to step back in and commit. But as I started prepping, it became unmistakably clear—teaching HJ again was not the plan, at least for now. Instead, He pointed me toward launching the advanced abuse recovery curriculum I had written.

He said, “Julie, remember I told you that you have everything you need to move forward?”

Ha ha.

Until now, the circumstances hadn’t coincided with the timing. When I realized that He was saying now, my first response (oops) was to remind Him that the “curriculum” wasn’t ready. And besides, wasn’t it supposed to be a devotional book? Originally, when I was writing it, I felt that it really needed to be more—a full program with groups, leaders, videos, and all the pieces that come with it. But that also felt like far more than I wanted to take on.

Already an Abuse Class

Imagine my surprise when I obeyed and pulled the manuscript out to see that 25 weeks of it were already written. And it was already formatted like a class: group scripture reading (often a full chapter or full Bible story), lesson, key points, guided journaling time, discussion, and prayer.

Yeah. He knew that. Get with the program, Jules.

Although I have some revising to do and at least ten lessons to add, I started the beta group of Broken Souls Restored two weeks ago. My students have already been incredibly helpful with suggestions and ideas. And they all state this depth of healing opportunity is really what they needed next. Praise the Lord!

This is from one of the ladies:

Also… I loved the group this morning! I didn’t want to leave! I think that’s always a sign of a good group. I loved the scripture reading and the journaling!… The layout and the formatting is right up my alley!… I look forward to staying with this group and continuing to learn what Jesus has in store for me here. This lesson was so empowering!

Aww, I am grateful that He is using me.

Here I am, Jesus, send me. These are the words and experiences that You gave me. I am honored to pass these learnings along to help other ladies heal from abuse and trauma. (Isaiah 6:8, Julie version)

Healing Room

Portland, Oregon, has a little secret. Well, not really—it’s just not heavily advertised, and after being there—I get it. If you look up “healing rooms” in Portland, you will come up with a few “listings”, but not the one I went to.

My friend, Robyn, and I met at a group I taught a few years back. Now that I’m no longer leading that group, we get to be friends. :-) We’ve both recently felt called to similar things.

She already ministers in a specific area of Portland, often praying with people she doesn’t even know, as God reveals to her what they need. The Lord has also guided her to a local coffee shop, which opened as a ministry. The owners often pray with people—and offer spiritual mentoring.

Pretty cool.

Robyn visited this healing room a couple of times and mentioned it several times. And yes, I still need healing, but I also wanted to witness firsthand how people respond to this prayer call when God tells them to GO and DO.

We filled out our forms, and under my reason for coming, I penned: I went to Heaven and came back a year ago. Now I am feeling called to intercessory prayer for others, but my health is getting in the way.

We waited in a beautiful sanctuary as others filtered, then seemed to rush, in. Worship music—wonderfully centering. Then, a pastor explained the process, told us that God does answer prayer there, and obtained our agreement that God would perform miracles that night.

Called to Minister

We’d come early intentionally as we planned to ride the light rail back to her place, then I had an hour or so drive home. God was gracious in that they saw us quickly and together. It became clear to me minutes before that God was calling us into ministry together in some form, and we also sought clarification on this matter.

And of course, I’d been praying like crazy: My Lord, show me that You are here in this. Help me to discern…Let me know if anything is off…or wrong, not pleasing to You. I will leave immediately as soon as you warn me.

My friends, He was so there. We sat in a basement room with a gentleman and a lady, and she teared up as she read my reason for being there, assuring me verbally that I had come to the right place.

Within a few minutes of them praying over us and sharing what God revealed, I realized that I was relaxed, leaning back on the couch with my legs crossed—a rare position for me these days, without pain. And I hadn’t even remembered leaning back or crossing them.

The Holy Spirit did visit—thank you, Jesus. My arms, hands, legs, and feet grew oven-hot and tingly. I could have melted an ice cube quickly had one been set in my hand.

I felt His presence as surely as if I had again stepped into Heaven. As surely as I had when perched in my living room a month or so ago, accepting the calling He gave me, and again last week when He confirmed a person who needed to be involved on an ongoing basis.

What a blessing!

I didn’t want to leave. He knew that and planned for that.

A half hour (oops!) quickly passed. They had others to pray with, so we headed upstairs. The lady hugged me tightly. “You two have the Holy Spirit just spilling out of you,” she said. “Please come back.”

As we rode the light rail, and all the rest of the night—His heat stayed on me. I knew I had been to the right place. And I knew I needed more of this in my life.

The next morning, the intense heat and tingling had abated. I admit to sleeping very well. :-)

My allergies did not heal. In fact, they both felt that my healing will come as I continue to pray for others. And later, there was a hint about some generational trauma that I apparently still need to deal with (yes).

The gentleman kept seeing a kitchen and bread. That was funny, because neither my friend nor I like to cook. But the next morning, God told me: We were spiritually feeding people, with the bread of life.

Yes, we sure are.

Although it was not His plan to instantly heal me, He made sure that I knew He was there and that all of the experience beamed only from Him.

What a perfect way to remember and celebrate my Heaven anniversary.