Vickie – Cherish the Time You Have Left

My healing journey began long before I stepped fully into ministry. I haven’t always been Catholic. I was raised Lutheran, and in my search for healing, I looked for any church or modality that had the word “healing” attached to its name. This, unfortunately, opened doors that I would later need to close through deliverance. Receiving no answers, I cried out to Jesus in the midst of trauma wounds from the past, depression, debilitating migraines, and emotional heaviness. Jesus answered my cry in the most unexpected way—He sent His Mother! I began hearing a woman’s voice speaking within me saying, “Go to the Catholic Church.” Her prompting was persistent. So, I drove to the closest Catholic church, opened the doors, and took a seat. I sensed holiness in this place. Later I would discover that this was because Jesus was with me, in the Tabernacle. I was on holy ground. But what did it mean? Was I to become Catholic?

The woman’s voice continued with urgings that stirred my spirit. Repeatedly, I would drive to Catholic churches trying to understand this interior call. “The Woman,” I later discovered, was the Blessed Virgin Mary. Step by step, she was taking me by the hand to the Divine Physician for my conversion and healing, which came in layers and seasons. Light began to shine in my dark world, and in time, the wounds of my past no longer defined me.

God began to use me, despite the fact that I did not know much about Catholicism, the saints and mystics, nor even about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Jesus would use my desire to heal others, filling in the blanks of my understanding. By this time, I had developed an insatiable appetite to serve Jesus and to love souls. In 1999, while on a tennis court, I heard a woman complaining of great pain. The Lord’s voice in my interior spoke to me and said, “Go to her.” So, I did. I only wanted to help. Jesus guided my movements and my words to help the woman in pain. At first, she objected, saying that nothing had helped her in the past—not doctors, medicine, or physical therapy. But the Lord’s persistent voice within me directed me to place one of my hands on her neck and the other on her back. At the very moment I followed His directions, electricity shot out of my heart, down my hands, and up through the top of my head! Instantaneously, she was healed!

It was then that I began to ask a lot of questions about how that sort of thing can happen. Could I make it happen again? I wondered. I learned very quickly that I could not make anything happen! The door opened for me to receive education and training in the ministry of healing. Jesus brought priests, deacons, and laypeople into my path who had experience in the Healing and Deliverance Ministry. Through years of tutelage from them, I learned about the power of the Sacraments, sacramentals, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

During this time of intense learning, a book fell into my hands called A Man of Hope by Renzo Allegri. The protagonist of the book, the stigmatist Padre Pio, spoke through its pages saying he would “not rest until he escorted all his spiritual children into heaven.” Encouraged, I looked to the heavens and prayed, “Padre Pio, would you be my spiritual father?” Immediately, my room filled with a sweet fragrance, giving me the “yes” I was looking for.

When my family moved to Germany, the Woman’s voice followed me there. Another book came across my path describing the Marian apparitions in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina. In one of her messages, the Blessed Virgin pleaded, “Convert, convert, convert.” I didn’t yet understand what “convert” meant, but every time I read the word, my heart quickened. It was the same quickening that I felt in the first interior call to “Go to the Catholic Church”! I would do it! I would convert if I only knew what it meant!

In 2002, I traveled to Medjugorje seeking healing from debilitating migraines and a clear sign that I was to become Catholic. Outside St. James Church, I prayed with people as the Lord prompted me. One woman wept as I prayed with her, and afterward, she prayed over me. She placed my hands together in prayer, traced the Sign of the Cross three times on the back of my left hand, and said, “Padre Pio, Padre Pio, Padre Pio.” Instantly, tremendous heat flooded my ears. Later I realized that I had been healed of the migraines through the intercession of my spiritual father. I knew I had received my sign. I was in a Marian pilgrimage site, healed through the prayers of a lovely Catholic laywoman who called out to a Catholic saint in heaven. I was being called to convert to Catholicism.

Today, I lead The Upper Room, a ministry dedicated to igniting, equipping, and empowering the Body of Christ. I invite people to “load up their spiritual backpacks” with “spiritual power tools”—the gifts, graces, and spiritual practices given by Heaven. I teach how the Holy Spirit speaks through words of knowledge, confirmations, discernment markers, and “spiritual breadcrumbs”—the clues that the Holy Spirit gives if you are going in the right direction. My life experiences—both professional and spiritual—have helped me assist others in seeking healing, freedom, and conversion. Jesus continues to bear abundant fruit in the lives of the people I serve. And once people are equipped, they become physician assistants to the Divine Physician, praying for and ministering healing others in various areas of life.

Since the year 2000, I have also been receiving interior messages and visions—short life teachings, maxims, course corrections, consolations, and prophecies. I see visions with my spiritual eyes, and the messages appear interiorly as written words, which I then record. My bishop is aware of all my work and the spiritual gifts I have received, and I meet with him regularly for oversight. For twenty-five years, these messages were brief. But beginning in October of 2025, the messages suddenly grew in depth and urgency. They are being given to uplift, to clarify, and to awaken faith—while there is still time. Their insight is profound. Their language is not my own. They teach us how to live life through the lens and language of love.