the long pain and forgiveness

i'm still hurting from the trauma of giving birth.

i thought it would be done by now, the suffering.  it's been more than three weeks, and does the body even still bear the agony of twenty tearing minutes?

apparently time and healing all wounds are not as closely linked as i'd like to believe.

i've learned this before.  but somehow it's easy to forget, and the way pain can linger comes each time as a stabbing surprise.

i fell for a guy when i was eighteen - fell right into his cavernous ego and hungered after him like a puppy.  and when his harshness sent me reeling, i felt that hurt for years.  four years.

it wasn't four years of constant sad love songs and tears, but whenever something would remind me, waves of owww-that-hurts would all but drown me.

i changed, in that long pain.  i used to be the kind of person who would rather be hurt than hurt someone else.  i could absorb it - just take it, when it was dished out, and not hit back.  but eighteen came and there wasn't any room left to absorb hurt, and i couldn't bear an ounce and it came spilling back out, and i would do almost anything to repel fresh pain.  i didn't care who i hurt on the way.  i was a big wound oozing bitterness, and i couldn't shake this long pain.

it was autumn - the nights were dark early, the highway lined with half-dressed trees and whipped with wind.  i was driving home from the airport, and had turned off the radio to just pray.  and i begged God to help me forgive, help me change, lift me out of the self-centred ugliness i was trapped in.  i needed freedom from this pain.

i didn't expect His response.

'truly, i say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'  (matthew 25:40).

here was a challenge.  if Jesus had hurt me - if he had broken my heart - would i forgive him?  (the cross was proof that he had forgiven me - everything.  forever.  how could i do less?)

yes.  i would.

then do it, he prompted, as unto me.

and i suddenly found that i could.  i could forgive - when forgiving as if i was forgiving Jesus.  i could take the pain, when taking it meant not hurting Jesus.

and bearing this pain for vava is the same - worth it, worth it, every second of three weeks and counting.  when she snuggles up on me and breathes her squeaky little snores against my neck, i am blissful with the worth-it-ness of it all.  pain?  what pain?  for the one i love?  bring it on.

tomorrow i have an appointment with my midwife.  ugh.  i've got all sorts of ugly feelings about it - after the birth being what it was, and her not remembering my name -

but Jesus reminded me of my old pain-lesson today.  can't i forgive her - as unto him?  because he'll take it, my forgiving her, as an offering to him.

of course i can.  forgive him, who has forgiven me everything?
in a glad heartbeat.

mean ol' midwife?  bring it on.