Healing Through Forgiveness
I went to see a dying man who had cancer throughout his whole body. He hadn’t eaten in days and he could not sleep. He was sputtering blood in a trashcan when I arrived at his home. He didn’t really want to see a healer, but his sister begged him to see me so he agreed in an effort to appease her. I knew once I saw him that he was ready to die, but he was agonizing over something and I could feel it. First I helped him to get comfortable and then we just talked. I knew that for him to have cancer in every organ of his body that he had to have held some sort of long-term resentment. Cancer is like a long-held resentment that eventually eats away at us. It turns out that he did have a long-standing conflict with a family member that ran very deep and he held guilt over a previous relationship. We talked a lot about forgiveness – forgiveness of his family member that he had the conflict with and forgiveness of himself, as well as releasing all the guilt he was holding.
I did some energy work with him to give him some comfort and settle his stomach. His family from out of town had arrived to visit with him, so it was time for me to leave. A day or so later he passed away. I wanted to quit healing. I felt useless. It was hard to accept that there was nothing more I could do. Why hadn’t someone called on me sooner? Would he have had a better chance then? I was mad at God and I asked what my purpose was meant to be in this situation. It just didn’t make sense. I was afraid to attend his funeral, to have to face his family, but I ended up going out of respect. When I got to his casket, I silently apologized for not being able to save him. I heard his sister call my name. I froze and panicked because she wanted to talk to me. I wondered if she was angry, or blamed me in any way for her brother’s death. However, it was quite the opposite.
She told me that he had a meal when I left, the first meal in days and that he slept peacefully for a few hours. Further, when he woke up, all he could talk about was forgiveness. He called his family member that he had the conflict with and forgave him for whatever had gone wrong between them. He also had forgiven himself. They made peace after many years of war. Soon after, he died. His sister kept thanking me for the peace I brought to him. She said she had not seen him so peaceful in a very long time.
The beauty of forgiveness is that we forgive the person, not the acts. It is not important that we know exactly how to forgive, as long as we are willing to forgive. The Universe takes care of the rest for us.
Before I go to bed at night, I recite … “Lord, I am willing to forgive all who have ever hurt, angered or disappointed me, including myself” and I let it go. This releases the other person, not the act, but it releases me as well.
