Forgiveness

This morning on the ferry I was blessed. Someone sat beside me and said “do you go to church?” And warily I said |”I have”. So then I said I’d sort of rather be in the forest. Why did you ask me that? So he said I was reading the Bible this morning and I wanted to talk about it. The energy of a man who owned his own stuff and would not try to lay it on me was all around him. So I said “Here I am. Go” So he read this passage off his phone and I noticed he got lighter as he read it! There was a lot in it. And I took the opportunity to put some of it in my own words. It was from the book of James. 18 verses. We talked a bit about the need to get centred in the flow of Divine love. We talked about his wife and baby and parental leave ending. We talked about my baby who died at one year of age. And my experience in a step family where none of the kids or cats got along and there were four of each. This was a guy who knew how to connect. A man who had been so hurt in the workplace that he was giving up his career, he talked with me about forgiveness. I explained that forgiveness is a process and not an event and not to sugar coat stuff that happened. To sink into his pain and not to come up for air until something changes. To feel the betrayal and the hatred and the fear until something changes. What we do not heal will repeat in our lives until we heal ourselves. I am 68. Things that have been repeating all through my lineage before and after me are healed today. Finally my family and I can all forgive ourselves and move on. And the cycle can stop. Before you can forgive anyone else you have to forgive yourself. Before you can set others free you must own your own freedom. Please heal yourself. When you have a breakthrough real healing flashes all through the web of your lineage and the little ones are free. Thanks be to God. Anyway this wonderful man who loves his Bible and his Church and his wife and his baby and his parents on Saltspring where he was going to spend the day said “can I pray for you?” With some people the answer would be NO. But with him it was a decisive yes and I surrendered as he put his arm around me and prayed and I felt that channel of Divine love open all around me. And you know what? That was 12 hours ago. It’s still there!!!