The Conclusions of Why We Didn’t Sue Our Physician

 

Journey

Part 3 - The Conclusions

~  Forgiveness is my key to emotional healing.  ~



I believe that forgiveness and emotional healing aid physical healing. I have been given so much help in the area of emotional healing. Family, friends, Sunday School teachers, pastors, teachers, our awesome family counselor and so many members of my healthcare team continue to support and encourage not just my physical needs, but also my emotions. I have been blessed to also be given forgiveness liberally from others which frees me to forgive more easily myself when I need to.  


Forgiving, I learned over the years, is my key to digging out bitter thoughts, angry replies and over time releasing the hurt that drags me back to the pain in my mind. I have 43 years of solid “practice in forgiving”, but please, please don’t ask for my report card.  I hesitate to share that I rarely felt the "feeling of forgiveness" until recently, and that feeling occasionally wavers. That’s the thing about forgiveness, it’s not really a feeling like I used to believe. Instead I learned, it’s an action that follows a choice and it often needs repeating. Merriam Webster admits that one may cease to feel resentments, but the forgiver must act and choose to give up resentments or claims to compensation.*


One thing I had pondered, but had never known how to do was to forgive myself. Have You ever forgiven yourself for that “junk” that crowds into the dark corners of your mind? From new and personal experience, I can share that it is completely worth the effort. Recently, I discovered the wording in a verse in Matthew 22** was a little different from what I thought. It prompted me to consider being as kind, gentle and forgiving to myself as I was to others. The verse says to “love my neighbor AS myself” and I realized that if I can't forgive myself, then can I really forgive my neighbor?



🕊

Concluding My Forgiveness Story

With a Piece of my Heart on the Side



I sent messages of forgiveness to my doctor. Instead of railing for my rights and clamoring for justice, I wrote (what turned into multiple messages, word count is a real bummer) words that directly addressed the problems. I did not ask for an apology, but proffered my own extension of free forgiveness instead. I also shared my heart that day. I made a quick decision, based on a lifetime of striving to learn to forgive others when I felt wronged. I have been blessed to see others model that kind of self-sacrificing forgiveness. I do not share this as THE only or THE best possible path forward for others. This was an individual choice in a specific situation. This was the right path for me.


I wrote and edited quickly in my car in the middle of a busy Wednesday afternoon of running errands. When I finished and hit send, emotional waves rolled over me.  I closed my eyes inside our parked vehicle outside of a Marshalls store and realized the messages were written for my doctor, but they had an even greater impact on me. They changed my heart. I saw her again as a human, like me. Both of us are fallible, imperfect, and in need of love. Then, I remembered the way she treated me the many years before our miscommunications caused a rift. She cried with us, laughed with us, rejoiced with us and carried our concerns in her heart and mind.


I remembered she is loving, kind, dedicated and that she carries the weight of hundreds of lives.  Every day that she faces, she thinks of others. She indeed does need love. Then, after years of practicing (sometimes unsuccessfully and always imperfectly, but occasionally succeeding), I forgave her and ended up forgiving so much more. I forgave a few others that day, including myself.  I released years of self inflicted pain and shame. In that most sweet Week Of Passion (it was indeed days before Easter Sunday), I felt God’s love and forgiveness more than I could even imagine before.*** I finally saw myself and someone else through God’s eyes.


This forgiveness is such a huge part of my journey. My journey of life, love, learning, forgiving and yes, of cancer is all mixed up in me.  Maybe it’s my ADHD or maybe it’s the hours of contemplation that blends my thoughts at high speed in my heart and mind. One day, I sat down to forgive the doctor that I thought I might sue. That day, after I opened my heart to forgive, I received so much in return. Those words and thoughts of forgiveness that I offered kicked off a cascade of emotions, events, thoughts and even ignited re-imagined dreams inside my mind and heart. 


Those moments changed me. Then, when I opened my physical eyes to take a look around to “find out where I was”, the daylight returned me back to the shopping center. Forgiveness gives peace, comfort, joy and relief, which I experienced then and still appreciate today. But you also, learn from my questionable choice of time and place. Please, do not attempt a dissertation of forgiveness in a parking lot of your local shopping center!  Thank goodness my goal is not perfection. I will always “miss the mark of perfection” and I am learning to be thankful for that as well.


Definitely time to wrap up. I read MyChart. My feelings got hurt. When I read it again later, I got mad. I let my doctor know that I was moving on, because a cancer patient should 100% trust their oncologist. We found a new medical team in an unbelievable timeframe, but I know that I will miss my old medical team. I loved them. I still love them. They poured into me. They cried with me, laughed with me and encouraged me. They protected me and cared for me. I still chose to move on. It is hard. Yes, it was and is definitely complicated. 


It was a leap of faith to move on and forgive, especially with cancer on board and without a backup net (or medical team waiting). Did I tell you that I leaped before I looked? Yes, trauma, ADHD, and my rollercoaster internal emotional state did not call for or use logic. I lept, I flew, I crashed, but I did not burn. I instead landed in a soft place. I left one medical team before I had another lined up and am already blessed with a new medical team with brilliant minds and caring hearts. I am thankful for all my medical teams, modern medicines, my caring friends, my church home, my lovingly concerned and patient family, who with God himself, sheltered me and provided for me when I lept before I looked.  I am just human. I have quirks, foibles and just plain bad behavior sometimes. But I do so love my family, my friends, my medical teams and people in general.


I also love that I have the chance to spend more time on this big, beautiful earth. I am glad that I have more time here to learn, grow, love and maybe even blog again. And I am grateful for you; thank you for joining me on this journey. I hope for you the prayer that has been on my heart this week as the spring warmth and sunshine brightened my days. May God bless you and keep you. May he make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. May he also turn his face toward you and grant you peace. ****




Until next time, 



Christine
~ ALK+ and free to share


Notes

I wish I knew about this amazing group when I first recieved my diagnosis.

*Forgive

: to cease to feel resentment against (an offender) : PARDON

forgive one's enemies

2a: to give up resentment of or claim to requital (see REQUITAL sense 1) for

forgive an insult

b: to grant relief from payment of

forgive a debt

intransitive verb

: to grant forgiveness

had to learn to forgive and forget

Link to direct quote from Merriam-webster.com



**Matthew 22:39  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”


***I can only Imagine

This tune popped into my head when I wrote that this line

Link to "I can Only Imagine" by Mercy Me



****Numbers 6:23-25 May the LORD bless you and keep you; may the LORD cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;may the LORD lift up His countenance toward you and give you peace


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