Forgiveness: the Power to Overcome
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have an instant formula that would
turn all your problems, hurts and fears into a
happily-ever-after outcome?
There are lotions and potions, medical diagnoses and hundreds of
articles and books written on feeling good and being happy. Yet,
too many of us are feeling loaded down, bent over and depressed
due to life's heavy demands on us. Thoughts keep screaming at us
how we have been maltreated, snubbed and gotten a bad rap! How
can you be happy with all this hanging over your head? After
all, it's true!
Just today I called a friend to see how she was doing after a
long ordeal with doctors, hospital mistakes and lots pf pain.
You see, Marlene had not one, or two, but three brain aneurysms.
Soon after the procedure for the first one she was sent home
with much pain and discomfort. To make a very long story short,
her doctor refused to check into the cause of the persistent
pain, instead telling her that "it was all in her head" and that
she would have to live with it.
It was only after much research and sheer determination that
Marlene found a team of doctors in another local hospital who
had pioneered an alternate, less invasive procedure to "loop"
the other two aneurysms. They agreed to work on her, and in the
process it was discovered that she had contracted the dreaded
"hospital infection" which had progressed to such a degree that
by then it was too late to merely treat it with drugs. The whole
left side of her cranium had to be removed and the membrane
carefully rolled up inside in order to carefully remove it.
Subsequently the cranium was supported for months from within by
"spanners" to keep it from caving in, and eventually balloons
were inserted weekly for another six months or so to expand the
shrunken ligaments in preparation for the reconstruction of the
left side of the head.
Marlene was not a happy camper! During her ordeal her husband
had left her, she was in constant pain, and depression plagued
her constantly. Just as the end seemed to be in sight and a date
was to be finalized for the plastic surgery, it was discovered
that once again the same infection had recurred. Furthermore,
she now had an inoperable brain tumor! M.R.I. or brainscans were
impossible because of the metal loops and spanners inside the
head!
Five more months of terror and exhaustion later, the doctor in
question finally acknowledged that the "tumor" was actually an
object carelessly left behind by them during one of their
procedures. Marlene was suddenly bombarded with advice from
family, friends and strangers to sue the hospitals in question
and/or the doctors. After all, she had rights and deserved
proper compensation for all her distress that now spanned over
three years! In her bitterness she had been contemplating it for
a while.
During her ordeal Marlene had started looking into the Word of
God, reading it, believing it and ... relying on it. She had
come to realize that the more she thought about the negatives
the more depressed she felt. She did not want to sue, primarily
as she did not want to prolong the agony of having to endure all
the bitter mental anguish again and again during a trial. Today
she declared to me jubulantly that for the first time in this
long battle she was now able to laugh. I can laugh again, she
reported excitedly, because I made a decision in my heart to
forgive everyone for their mistakes. The minute she had made
that decision, it felt as if a five-hundred-pound weight had
been lifted off her back. She was not the same person I had been
trying to encourage for a long time. It was not the old Marlene
that had come back. No, this was a Marlene who was totally
empowered in the knowledge that forgiveness, according to the
Word of God, has indeed set her free! This was a gal who can now
laugh at her ordeal and truthfully say that without it she would
not have got the Wisdom, faith and power through that faith to
overcome.
Marlene is now living one precious day at a time, looking only
at the wonderful and good things in her life, being thankful for
them, and trusting God to lead her further. She is not out of
her danger zone yet. She still has to undergo the operation to
remove the "debris" in her head and then still the
reconstruction of her skull. But now she is in total peace,
trusting, hopeful and convicted - not by mere human intellect -
that she is an overcomer.