Forgiven

A most hopeless case.

Alone, he lay in a reverse-isolation ICU room with no hope of surviving the day. No amount of opioids and fentanyl could touch the pain.

The fact that his own choices caused the very infirmities that now inflicted him was not lost on him. Conversely, he consistently carried a weight of self-loathing, so much so that the concept of a furious God seemed reasonable. At times, he fully believed he deserved, not just punishment, but eternal torture.

A fearful anticipation of a Great Assize loomed; its shadows darkened every relationship and tainted every decision.

Efforts to amend, apologies, regrets, confessions never seemed sufficient. His choices hurt those he loved the most, wounding them deeply. Try as one might, one cannot change the past. Try as one might, a sensitive person cannot forget the past.

Consequences remain. Despair threatens.

Medical science, for all its wonders, was impotent.

One day, not a special day, just an ordinary day in late summer, a Divine One came unexpectantly into his hospital room.

Without pretense, excuse, or even expectation, the man opened his hospital gown and bared his wounds. Gaping from his open chest there was an oozing malignancy the size of a good size pumpkin.

It stank. It’s ugly leaching yellow-green discharge seemed alive, undulating, growing, consuming. The sight and smell were overwhelming. As it widened with a life of its own, the wound under it was revealed. The entire chest and belly exposed, inner organs desperately gasping for life,

bleeding,

struggling, agonizing,

bleeding,

bleeding,

bleeding,

oozing life, dying.

At the sight, seasoned physicians, surgeons, nurses, and technicians ran away repulsed. Many vomited. A few screamed. Most gasped in horror. No family members could bring themselves to visit. No clergyperson could bring a ministry of presence.

Only the Divine One remained. Unaffected, unrepelled, nonplussed.

The patient pleaded with his eyes.

The Divine One said nothing.

The Divine face was calm.

The Divine One leaned forward and touched the horrid stench of a wound with open palm. Searing heat.

Joyous pain.

Severe mercy.

Blazing hope.

The open inner wounded organs gently healed, became whole.

A second touch.

The stinking cancer began to shrink.

A third touch.

Whole. Healed. Cured.

Liberated from transgression and its consequences, he embraced the Divine One with grateful tears.

Together, they walked, arm in arm, out of the hospital into the Light.