TESTIMONY

The healing power of forgiveness
by Anne Ramanathan

It all began 26 years ago when I was struck down with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Being just 13 I was confused, angry, and felt like the whole world was just crumbling down before my very eyes. It started with an ankle pain and within 2 weeks I had very high fever and was bedridden with extreme pain and swelling in all my joints form head to toe. I just couldn't understand what was going on with me. I was an athlete one day and the next day I was lying in the hospital bed unable to move a limb. All kinds of thoughts came to my mind, I thought at one point that I had leukemia giving my naivety a run for ignorance. I even remember asking my dad if I was going to die. I don't know whether it was to my great disappointment or relief that my blood results showed RA. I asked God ‘WHY ME'? I was barely into my teens and why was I going through an illness that attacked most old people (or at least I thought it only attacked older people at that time but found out later that thousands of children were affected by RA as well). From that moment on I knew that my life was never going to be the same ever again.

I lost most of my friends because I didn't attend school for long periods of time and I was totally devastated and broken. Each time when sports day approached I would come down with very high fever and I would be crying because I was unable to do the one thing that I loved the most, (to run) and that made me become sad and angry with myself. As the RA progressed over the years, I watched all my joints deteriorate and become bent. I managed to struggle with the pain and deformity until I was 17 but a relapse that year permanently confined me to a wheelchair. I was totally dependant on my parents for everything at this stage. I felt like a burden to everyone. I was sad, frustrated and angry for not being able to do anything for myself. I began to withdraw and closed myself to the world. All this time, unknown to me, I was becoming a person with a heart of stone. I was so angry and hurt with many people - myself, my parents, including God. I was feeling guilty for being angry with God because I knew that He was the only one who could understand me but nonetheless felt that way towards Him. I felt so rejected by everyone and thought that the only thing that people felt for me was pity and this really upset me a lot. I never did anything with those feelings but just pushed them aside and buried them. After being imprisoned in the wheelchair for almost 6 years I was ‘reconstructed' with knee and hip replacements. This allowed mobility and eventually I started walking again.

Soon after this I decided to further my studies, and met a group of friends whom I became close to. After a while a lot of unpleasantness took place and I felt betrayed, hurt by their actions and didn't feel that I belonged. There was an instance when I was invited to a party held in one of their houses. I went there believing that I would have a good time with my friends but I was totally ignored. I just sat in a corner until it was time for my dad to come and pick me up. I felt cheated, hurt and alone. I never spoke about it to anyone. It was only recently when a friend and I were casually speaking about friendships that I started relating what had happened to me in the past. My emotions were stirred up and I spent the entire day recalling the hurts and emotional pain that occupied a space in my heart. It was like re-visiting my past and everything was crystal clear. The hurts and anger began to emerge almost instantly and by the end of the day I had developed severe pain in my left kidney and abdomen and was also throwing up. The pain was so severe that the doctor was summoned to my home. When he came he too was puzzled by the extent of my pain. He said it was either a urinary infection or there could be a stone in the gall bladder. He gave me an injection and painkillers to ease the pain but it only lasted for a while and pain reoccurred. For the next few days I was still in pain and the painkillers were becoming ineffective. During this time the hurts kept coming one after another and I realised that as a consequence of the repeated rejections I had experienced in the early days I had made an inner vow never to get close to anyone. I also realised that I was holding on to all these anger and hurts and in doing so I had not forgiven the people who trespassed my boundaries.

The question that came so rapidly to me was: “Who am I not to forgive others when God Himself forgave me my sins?” Am I to hold on to my hurts and turn away from forgiving my friends or was I going to follow the Lord and forgive them and bring renewal and cleansing to my heart? I followed the latter. I repented and confessed to the Lord my anger, hurts and every judgment that I held against my friends. I said a prayer of forgiveness for each one of them. Then I emptied myself and bound every emotion that did not belong to me onto the cross of our Lord. I asked the Lord to replace the void in my heart with His love. From the moment I repented from the depths of my heart I experienced a great sense of peace within myself. Peace, which only God could restore to me. Although I suffered tremendous pain during those few days, I realised that the pain represented the emotions that I had been carrying with me all these years.

During the mass on Sunday of that week, I once again repented during the Eucharistic celebration and told the Lord that I deeply hungered for His forgiveness. I wanted so much to be freed and wanted to experience the love of God within me. After mass 2 sisters-in-Christ ministered to me and prayed for me. In their prayer they asked the Lord to remove all that was not of Him from within me. They then told me that all would be fine. That evening when I went to ease myself I felt an intense pain and soon after that I felt a large substance being released. I called one of them and related the incident to her and she confirmed that when she prayed for me that morning the Lord gave her a word that He was going to remove something from me. Ever since that day I am on a great journey of recovery from a lot more of other hurts. It is a journey during which I am constantly reminded of God's unconditional love for me and that His promises for me are true.

The Lord's Prayer sums everything for me, the very line which says,...' forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us..' will always remind me of the restoration and freedom that the Lord has given me.