Healing the Sores We Don’t Merit. Written By Lanre Olagunju

She came in with high hopes, and a little much more than a mustard seed sized faith. All she wanted were healing prayers for her mouth deformation, which has brought her shame and constant misery. But little does she know that Sokoto can be much closer than her own ‘sokoto’. Before she could say much with the same deformed mouth, the clergy got this strong nudge to ask her about her mother in-law.
With so much pain and reserved anger, she expressed that the memory of her mother in-law isn’t one she wants to remember, let alone discuss. The reverend again explained to her that the one who teaches him all things says that she has unresolved issues with her mother in-law. He persuaded that no matter how cruel or hateful she might have been; it’s right about time she freed the old woman.
She did all she could possibly do to ensure that her internal waterworks doesn’t bleed out, as she fought back hot tears. At this point, the painful videos of her mother in-law’s wrong doings brought her freshly cultivated sharp emotional pains of suffering. The deep unhealed sores were punctured on the surface and the misery done to her by another mortal who doubles as a woman just like herself were played back with clear motion picture sharp enough to bring back pains just the same way they were first felt at the point when she was afflicted.
For all the reason she could think of, letting the old woman be was just ok. But to be persuaded to forgive her, to her, is like giving her only heart to a foe. Of a sudden she lost the control to tame her tears and couldn’t but wail with such profusion strange of an adult. Amidst her weeping and wailing she decided with so much effort and struggle in her mind to forgive her mother in-law just like the clergy had persuaded. And almost instantly, something absolutely incredible happened. I mean something hugely amazing!
See, without everlasting series of prayer sessions, where worried prayer warriors cum prayer contractors sweat it out at loosing the same unknown demons they bind. Her mouth returned from the state of deformation. Even without the simple Lord’s Prayer. I mean her mouth, again became like that of you and I.
Immediately the woman left the office of the clergyman, something more dramatic happened. The clergy in awe went on his knees and said to the one who sees every corner of darkness much more than we see in daylight. ‘I forgive anyone who might have wronged me, including those I can remember and those I might never remember’.
Someone said to forgive is to set a prisoner free only to discover that the prisoner was you. There can’t be a better way to say it! When you hold resentment towards a person, it’s like being bound to that person by an emotional link stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to melt such link and get free, considering that we have great things to do and that life is short.

Forgiveness is the most difficult of all forms of giving. It has nothing to do with the pocket. Though, most times it costs pains and tears. It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend, at other times; it might just be hopelessly more difficult to forgive oneself than to forgive a friend. That we haven’t forgiven ourselves of something might be responsible for why we don’t see enough reasons to forgive others
I like the fascinating way Gandhi put it when he said “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” No one forgives with more grace and love than a child. In fact the most captivating thing about little kids is their intricate ability not just to forgive but to completely forget.
When we forgive as adults, do we truly forget? Memories that won’t vamoose from the skull easily are the memories of pains and pleasure. Since forgiving comes with element of pains, whether big or small. Therefore, to forget in the literary sense of the word, is an almost impossible task. After all, to forgive, one must first remember and move beyond the experience itself.
When we move beyond pains and bitterness, a freshness that beats the breeze of the sea brings joy and insight to produce positive results in that same area that once brought pains. The positive outcome brought about by such insight, heals wounds faster than any balm medicine can provide.
Forgiving won’t miraculously wipe out bitter and distasteful experiences. Never! The ‘forgive and forget’ cliché only sounds moral and I wonder how practicable it is. A healed memory is not automatically a deleted memory! Rather forgiving the unforgettable helps us to remember the experience in an absolutely better way. When we look those who have wronged us in the eye without resentment or any iota of bitterness, and then can wish them well, then we just know that forgiveness has taken place.
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