Healing And Forgiveness...

My husband and I recently visited the Healing Garden at Samaritan General Hospital in Corvallis where he was having his shoulder repaired.  It is a beautiful garden, designed to bring peace, calm and healing.  In the center of the garden is a fountain/pool that is shaped like an open eye (my interpretation).  Lining the bottom of the pool are hundreds, maybe thousands, of pebbles/stones that are constantly being washed by the water flowing into the pool, over the stones, and out again.

I closed my eyes and imagines that each one of those stones represented someones pain, hurting, anxiety or dis-ease (a term that one of my professors in Nursing School gave us).  The water continually washing over the stones represented the love of our Savior and His cleansing, healing love that gives us peace.

Like a single pebble among all the pebbles in the pool, I am "one," I am "unique," and I am troubled.  My eyes have difficulty focusing on only one, but sometimes a new experience opens up an old wound and my mind gets stuck in a monotonous groove of playing the same track on a scratched record over and over and over again in my head...focusing on only that one thing... hurt.   And I ask myself, where is forgiveness?

Let's focus on the hurt, whether it be hurt feelings, an open wound, a surgery or a feeling you have for someone you love.  Sometimes, like the pebbles on the beach or in the pool, the individual hurts in our lives pile up and it is impossible to sift out the one that has to be dealt with most.  This is true especially if one has not dealt sufficiently with forgiveness.  It is hard to focus on just that one!  And when that same hurt repeats itself again over the years, the wound fills up with even more pebbles.

I tell myself, as the Gospel teaches us, that it is more important for me to forgive those who have caused me pain and move on.  But when that pain is repeated again and wounds my child, then my heart breaks open and I feel their pain and forgiveness is once again hard to find.

So, I close my eyes and listen and feel as the cleansing water of our Savior's love washes over me and I know I (we) must forgive in order for the hurt to heal once again.  If you look carefully near the center of the picture above, you will see, like I did, a red stone shaped like a heart.  Our Savior's love has given that one stone a new chance to shine and share the healing love with others.  That one stone has experienced the healing process of forgiveness.

I pray that everyone who is suffering right now will look inside your heart, identify the pain you are feeling, then let the healing waters of love and forgiveness wash over you and put you at peace.

There is one who has suffered far more than you or I ever will.  He was beaten, spat upon, flogged with stripes and nailed to a cross.  He took upon himself all of the sins, pains, sorrows and suffering of the world and gave up His life for me...for you...for all of mankind...and yet He could say, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."  "Such love hath no man... than he give up his life for a friend."