Released

I wanted to. I tried to. I just didn't know how.

Following brain surgery I lost the hearing in my right ear. My balance nerve had been severed. My facial nerve was also damaged, causing the right side of my face to be paralyzed. It took three months and two surgeries before I was able to close my eye without taping it closed. However, the hardest loss of all was my loss of dignity.

Following the surgery I was unable to turn my brain off. I felt like I was a marionette whose strings were being pulled by unseen hands. I wanted desperately to sleep, to rest, to just stop thinking! Finally, I was taken to a doctor's office where I was asked to give my mental history. I was just getting ready to respond by saying that over forty years ago I had had a bi-polar episode but had not any problems with it until my brain surgery, when the person I was with began to answer for me. She began to give a detailed description of the most embarrassing chapter of my life. She was very thorough and nothing was left out. I sat there in stunned, humiliated silence.

Later, I went to a different doctor where I was allowed to speak. I was given something to help me sleep, and within a short amount of time I was back to normal--except for the tormentor called "Unforgiveness". I couldn't seem to get the degrading scene out of my mind. It played over and over. Each time I saw it, the rut was dug deeper into my mind. I felt like my soul had been scarred by shame. I didn't want to be angry; I truly wanted to forgive. I believed that this person had not intended to harm me but to help me. But that didn't matter. This incident became the focal point of pain, the place where my last shred of dignity was taken away.

The memory haunted me every day for over a year. Every day I prayed and asked God to help me forgive. And then finally it happened. My pastor was preaching on the Lord's prayer. When he got to the phrase, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," he explained that sometimes the reason we have trouble forgiving has to do with an idol in our heart. I prayed, "Father! what is the idol in my heart that is making it impossible for me to forgive?" As soon as I asked, I heard my Father say, "Your idol is your pride. You are seeking your own glory."

It was true. Everything that had happened since my surgery had been ripping away at my pride. I had always prayed for humility because I knew that God gives grace to the humble but resists the proud. I just had never realized how proud I really was. Now I realized that, like a skillful surgeon, God had used all the hurtful circumstances to expose this idol that was buried deep in my heart. I wish that I could say, "Thank God that's over with! I'll never struggle with pride again." But I know that it is a daily choice to humble myself. What I can say is that, when I was able to find the idol attached to my inability to forgive, God gave me the grace to forgive and He packed my wound with peace and healed it with His presence.