In the beautiful movie, "The blind side", Lee Ann Touhy bemoans the fact that Michael, her adopted, black giant of a son, so struggles to remember his school work. Her husband then interrupts to say what will stay with me forever: "Michael's greatest gft is forgetting". After years of being rejected, forced to forage for food, facing cold and lonely nights or walking in the rain, Michael learnt to forget, let go and move on.
Today my own father told me of the reasons he wants to die and go. I told him stuff I can't fully share here, except to say that there are many outstanding accounts in his life. I urged him to call in each of his children, to forgve them and secure their forgiveness - as an act of release.
I made the point that maybe the only real reason why old people are subjected to sad, empty twilight years, is to give them a chance to reflect on their lives before its too late. I also observed that the very things that are getting him down are merely a mirror to his own soul: such is the reflection that God brings to us as the grey shafts of evening filter in through the windows of our hearts. Indeed, our biggest offences will be reflected in one or more of our children - it has always and will always be that way, which is why I first take such offences back to God and pray that God first forgives and releases me so that my children may be free (of my offences and the sins of their fathers).
So now my Dad wants to go, but what is haunting him is the very thing that keeps him from the great moment of release that God intended the grave to be. It is true of us too ... in our living years. God sends issues to us to expose and resolve the unresolved issues that need to be resolved - and it won't go away until we get the victory. When my mom was in a similar state she clung to life for ages, until my Dad sent her a letter of forgiveness and release - she was gone within 24 hours.
For my Dad to really escape the prison of age and the limitations that hang over him, he needs to make a choice to escape long before they carry him out. The only way he can do that is to finally get mastery over the things that have always troubled him. Until he forgives, forgets and lets go, and until he find forgiveness so that others may find release, he will find his closing days increasingly gloomy. But if he chooses now to turn his sorrow into dancing and his mourning into dancing ... he will hear the voice of angels echo through his prison walls, long before he hears the jangle of the keys or the fall of the scythe.
As for you and me ... well can only I pray that we will never let it come to such a sad conclusion. God is speaking into your life and wants you to get victory over the issues that have always haunted you. The cross made adequate provision for your release and forgiveness, but there never was a better time to define the rest of your life, than right now. Let today be the first day of the first month of the rest of your days. Enough of ends, be they yet so sad, 'tis time to start again, to live and love and be what God wanted us to be.
(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net
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