Tag: forgiveness

Transforming Meditation: Part 5

Transforming Meditation: Part 5

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On Saturday, the final day of Lydia’s four-day spiritual care plan leading up to the day of her brain tumor operation, I saw the Holy Spirit at work.

“Lydia, tell me about your other failures?” I asked

She replied, “My marriage, I stayed in my marriage too long.  I should have left when he started wearing my mother’s clothes and became violent…he was having an affair with another man.”  

This was new information for me and I assume for her daughter as well.  I responded, “That must have been very painful for you?”  

“Yes, I…”  This was followed by silence, but no outward emotion.  

The daughter left at this point and Lydia and I talked about the marriage and other possible failures but nothing of additional significance came up – the daughter returned.

I said to Lydia, “How do you feel now?”  

She responded, “OK,” but started backing her wheelchair away. 

“I’ve been pushing you pretty hard for the last few days, I am surprised that you are not angry with me?”  

Lydia said, “I shouldn’t be angry with you, you are trying to help me.”  

“Do you know that you are disconnecting from me?”  

“Yes, I am tired and just want to lay down. I wish the operation were over.”  

“We are almost done, can you stay with me five or ten more minutes?”  

“Yes,” moving her chair forward but with her head still down.

“Lydia, your daughter is going to be leaving tomorrow, the day before the operation.  How do you feel about that?”  

She responded, “I feel bad about keeping her here, but I am totally dependent on her.”  Cynthia, touching her arm said, “I have to leave, Mom.”  

Lydia, still not making eye contact, said, “I am weak and just don’t have the strength to go through this.” 

 I asked, “Where are you going to get the strength?”  

“I don’t know.”  

I suggested, “Let’s go to your reading.”  

Cynthia pulled the reading out.  “Lydia, can you read it?”

After a long pause, Lydia read, 

“You must lay aside your former way of life and the old self which deteriorates through illusion and desire and acquire a fresh spiritual way of thinking.  You must put on the new person created in God’s image, whose justice and holiness are born of truth.”  

“So Lydia,” I asked, “where are you going to get your strength?”  

After a long pause and more encouragement, she said, “God.”  

I then asked, “Do you want to say anything to your daughter?”

With the first visible sign of emotion, lifting her head and reaching out to Cynthia, she said, “You are very dear to me!”  

Cynthia hugged Lydia and said, “I love you, Mom!”  

We finished with a prayer for the mother, the upcoming operation, in thanksgiving for the daughter’s help and her safe trip home, and for healing for the father, Lydia’s own mother, and the family.  

Transforming Meditation: Part 4

Transforming Meditation: Part 4

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On Thursday, the second day of Lydia’s spiritual care plan, the point was made and accepted, at least intellectually, that Lydia’s mother, husband, and neighbors no longer had power over her.  When fear arose within her, she was to repeat the name of Jesus over and over.

On Friday, the focus was for Lydia to forgive unconditionally.  She must not ask anything of those she is forgiving and she was not to judge them. This is an act of love to forgive another, just as Jesus forgives us unconditionally and he died that we may be forgiven.  

We went through forgiveness for each of the people in her life to get rid of anger and fear.  Whenever anger rose within her, she was to repeat, 

“Father, forgive them, they do not (or did not) know what they do.”  For herself, she was to repeat, “Father, forgive me for I did not know what I was doing.”

The plan was to use Saturday as a follow-up day to observe if Lydia could reduce her fear, then the God within, Who is Love, could work in her.  It was hoped that she could trust and turn herself and her operation over to God’s will and purpose for her.  

The exchanges on Saturday, the fourth day, are the most revealing of the work of the Holy Spirit and follow as noted at the time.  The mother, daughter, and I met in the otherwise empty chapel for purposes of privacy and the spiritual atmosphere.

“Lydia, before we start, I want to mention a couple of things.  Your daughter is sitting with us, but if we get into some uncomfortable areas, she may want to leave or I may ask her to leave briefly, and then come back.  Secondly, I noticed several times when we have met, you start moving your wheelchair backward and disconnect with me.  It is like you are hanging up the phone.  What is that about?”

Lydia responded weakly with her head down, “Sometimes I get tired and just want to go lay down.” 

“Lydia, I know that this work is difficult.  We are on a spiritual journey but we also have to deal with the past – the anger and fear that has built up over the years.   When you start to disconnect from me, I will draw your attention to it?”  

She responded, “OK.”

“Tell me, how you are feeling, Lydia?”  

“Not well, I just want this tumor to go away, to be done with.  I need a miracle.  I don’t know what I will be like after the surgery.”  

I responded, “If God gave you a miracle today and took away the tumor, do you think the anger and fear would go away?”  

Taking responsibility for her anger for the first time in our meetings, Lydia said, “The anger is deep down inside, I need to deal with it.”

I then led the discussion, “Yes, and we talked about forgiveness and to get rid of some of the anger toward your mother, your husband, the neighbor who poisoned your dog, and yourself.  Do you remember your words of forgiveness, let’s say toward your mother?”  

Lydia took a long pause with her head down, then said, “Father, forgive her for she knew not what she was doing.”  A similar phrase was repeated to each of the others and herself.  

I said. “Yes, you did not know what you were doing when you swallowed the lies.  You are a child of God, a beautiful child of God made in his image.  You did not know what you were doing when you put yourself down, you gave up your power.”  Lydia, taking more responsibility, said, “I made some bad decisions.”  

I asked, “Tell me about those decisions.”

“When I decided to get my degrees, I never had any breakthroughs in my scientific work.”  

I asked, “What kind of breakthroughs, give me an example.”  

“DNA, I never discovered DNA.”  

Somewhat curious, I asked, “Did you expect to discover DNA?”  

“No, I was just a lab technician.”  

I then asked who did discover DNA and remarkably she told me the full names of the two men that discovered DNA.  

Back to the subject, I said, “Why was the fact that you didn’t discover DNA a failure?”  She responded, “Because I was living according to the world’s desires, the world’s standards.”  

A short discussion ensued about living to the world’s standards and God’s standards being different. 

Click these links to read Transforming Meditation: Part 1, Transforming Meditation: Part 2 and Transforming Meditation: Part 3

Transforming Meditation: Part 3

Transforming Meditation: Part 3

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On Wednesday, the first day of Lydia’s spiritual care plan, the effort was to separate the offender from the offense.  This is meant to forgive the offender, not the offense since only God can forgive the offense.  In other words, we can forgive the sinner but not the sin. It seemed important to point out that this approach did not mean we were condoning the offense if we forgive the offender.  

We can forgive one another – our brothers and sisters, our neighbors.  

This would be the first step for Lydia in taking back her power that she had given to those who she perceived to have abused her – her own mother, her husband, neighbors, and self.  There was a little perceived success that day except for the initial verbal commitment of Lydia to take the spiritual journey.  

However, in a brief separate meeting with Lydia the next day, I was able to ascertain that she had total recall of everything that was said on Wednesday.  Also, we did identify that the grandmother had physically abused Lydia’s mother.

The second day, Thursday, the focus was on conquering the fear of repeated transgressions.  Lydia had to come to the conclusion that the abusers no longer had power over her.  Otherwise, this fear would drive out any possibility of love entering or her loving those around her.  

On the other hand, what did she gain by not ridding herself of this fear?  It should also be noted that we did not focus on the fear of her brain tumor and the impending operation at this point.  We focused only on the abusers.

Lydia’s mother – Lydia’s fear and low self-esteem arising from her mother’s treatment that was always critical and abusive, and Lydia’s resultant fear that she was never good enough.

Lydia’s husband, who she had finally divorced some years earlier had been frequently violent and verbally abusive.  Fear that she would upset him gave him power over her.  But it was important to point out to her that she had given power over to him and she was still suffering, he wasn’t.

Lydia’s neighbors had sent threatening letters and had poisoned her dog.  The dog was extremely important because it seemed in Lydia’s mind that the dog was the only one who gave her unconditional love.

Other fears that Lydia expressed was the fear of being left alone and that she would wake up and find no one to care for her, a fear of insanity and a feeling of helplessness, too weak to cope and a fear that God had turned His face.

Click these links to read Transforming Meditation: Part 1, Transforming Meditation: Part 2 and Transforming Meditation: Part 4

Transforming Meditation: Part 2

Transforming Meditation: Part 2

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Before I had an opportunity to actually write down the four-day spiritual plan for Lydia, I met her daughter in a long, empty corridor joining two buildings at the nursing home. The daughter lived in the mountains of a Western state.  From earlier conversations, I knew that she held a sort of “new age” belief, neither affirming nor denying God, but choosing to find wonder and mystery in nature.  

I told her that, with the approval of my supervisor, yet to be obtained, I planned to continue to work with her mother over the next few days. I began to explain to her that my approach to her mother was based on the love that God has for each one of us a child of God.  If her mother could realize this, then she could also realize her self-worth. 

The daughter then told me that she no longer had any love for her mother, her mother had never been able to show any love for her, and she only was there because her mother had become dependent on her and she felt duty-bound. As she said this, her eyes filled with tears.  

I suggested that we just let God work in the situation and remain open to what God had in mind for herself and her mother. We agreed that she would meet with the mother and me daily. 

Next, I wrote out the spiritual care plan and shared it with my CPE Supervisor. He reviewed and agreed to the plan, making adjustments here and there. The spiritual care plan was designed to spend approximately an hour a day over the next four days with the mother and daughter. 

The plan was a spiritual journey leading up to the operation to assist the mother to overcome anger, fear, and lack of forgiveness in order to experience God’s love. A specific objective was the healing of the mother and the reconciling love of the mother and daughter. 

A scripture reading that I chose for the mother to stay with her throughout the journey was, “You must lay aside your former way of life and the old self, which deteriorates through illusion and desire, and acquire a fresh, spiritual way of thinking.” (Ephesians 4:22-23)  

This reading was selected on the premise that she first had to forgive herself for accepting the illusion that she was not worthy of God’s love and giving up her “power,” only then, could she forgive those who had abused her. Also, it was apparent in her current condition, Lydia was incapable of showing love or other emotion to anyone else.  

At an earlier meeting, I had suggested to the mother that she tell the daughter that she loved her. In the presence of the daughter, all the mother could say, after some prompting from me, was, “I appreciate you” and that without feeling or conviction.  Once Lydia agreed to take the spiritual journey to heal, we met each day for the next four days.  

Please click here to link to Transforming Meditation: Part 1, Transforming Meditation: Part 3, and Transforming Meditation: Part 4