A Challenging Visit

This afternoon's visit was the most challenging I have encountered in this particular interim ministry. I had some clues that it might be when I had tried to find out about her. I didn't really even think she would agree to a visit, from what I had heard. But surprisingly, she called me, or returned my phone message.

I don't know exactly how to describe what I encountered. She was/is a fragile person. I learned her story, and how she had experienced a complete mental breakdown. She described her family as completely dysfunctional, and went on to say why that was so, in great detail. I guess I am completely and utterly amazed that someone in their sixties, who has had lots of therapy, an intelligent, high functioning person, could still be so wounded and broken.

She had been deeply hurt by a number of family members. (It is family members who usually have the power to inflict the deepest wounds.) In a way, I have experienced some of the same kinds of things in my life that have caused her to have so much unresolved baggage, and illness. To meet her made me so very grateful for my own healing and forgiveness and wholeness.

Even though she was not open to matters of faith and religion, I wanted so badly for her to know that forgiveness is not what you give to others. It is what we do for ourselves. It is about letting go. Clearly, she has not been able to let go of things that happened to her even as a child.

I suspect that letting go is much easier for those of us who believe in a God of redemption and grace, of compassion and mercy. When we can accept all that, we can forgive ourselves, and the journey toward wholeness begins!