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