The Cure for Cancer

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
― Mark Twain

     Many times over the last two years the Lord will put a situation in front of me that runs parallel to what I am dealing with at the time.  He will use someone close enough to me, that I am able to feel the pain, yet far enough away that I can look at the situation objectively.  The situation this time is one of rejection.  A woman I care about, deeply is losing her mother to cancer.  This woman's mother has rejected her, her whole life.  What I see is a woman so full of bitterness it has turned into cancer, and it's eating away at her from the inside out.  I would imagine someone facing death would be reaching out to make amends and to end lifelong hurts and grudges, but instead she is hanging on to her bitterness like a security blanket and hurting her daughter in a way that could cause the same bitterness to grow in her body.
     As I have been watching this situation, I hurt for the daughter, my friend, and I feel totally helpless.  I pray and I have talked to her about forgiving her mother for her own freedom.  The amazing thing about her is that she wants resolution after a lifetime of hurt.  When I think about her mom and her misery, I have to ask, what happened to this woman that she spent her whole life drunk on bitterness.  How does someone come to a place where they are so bound by hurt that their eternal life doesn't seem to be a priority.  Granted, I do not know what is going through her mind, but I am praying for her salvation daily.  It just doesn't seem fair that someone with such deep rooted pain should continue to suffer through eternity. 
     What the Lord is showing me is how our hurt turns to anger and if allowed transforms into a bitterness that can destroy us if not dealt with.  Forgiveness has to happen.  We have to take our thoughts captive at the hurt and forgive or it can kill us.  Maybe we won't suffer a physical death, but we can suffer a spiritual death.  I believe that bitterness is one of the greatest tools the enemy uses against God.  If we get hurt and allow it to turn into anger and that anger to grow into bitterness, eventually, we will blame God.  We will hold it against God that He allowed this situation.  This woman losing her mother to cancer, looked at me with anger in her eyes and asked, "How can a God who loves me take my father when I was only nineteen?"  Hurt, anger, bitterness.  Now to face losing her mother could destroy her.
     As I look at her mother's life one day, wondering what happened to her so many years ago that she would swim in bitterness for so much of her life, I realized what God was showing me.  There is a person who is holding anger against me.  I believe it is turning into bitterness.  This person has gone out of their way to cause pain to me.  I recently learned of another incident where this person tried to turn others against me.  So, what does God want me to see?  What hurt caused this person to be so angry with me?  Rejection.  They feel rejected by me.  The root of rejection runs deep in this person and my actions tapped in to an old hurt and old anger and old bitterness.  After two days of looking at the situation I realized, I did not allow the hurt to turn to anger this time.  I have learned something.  My whole life, through all the abuse and rejection I went through has been so full of anger.  I have lashed out all over people, including this individual in some very hurtful ways.  So, we have two people dealing with rejection from their pasts, beating on each other over old bitterness.
     What God is showing me is how important it is to clean up, to heal from our past wounds.  If we don't face them head on and heal them, set aside the anger and remove any bitterness it will keep rearing it's ugly head in all our relationships, especially our intimacy with Christ.  Is the damage too far gone to remove the cancer in this relationship.  Never.  God can do anything.  Is this woman's body so full of cancer that God cannot perform a miracle and cure her so her life could go on for years?  Never.  He is all powerful. 
     In this country we are taught revenge.  We see it in movies, we read it in the paper, it's all around us.  The real cure for cancer has been known all along, it's forgiveness.  God is a God of freewill.  This includes forgiveness.  It's our choice.  Forgiveness is a doorway for the Lord to step in and perform miracles.  Bitterness is the doorway for the enemy to do a number on us and all those around us who are touched by our lives.  Bitterness can spread through the body of believers just like cancer through a physical body. 
     I was involved in a discussion recently about how kids learn from watching.  We teach them behaviors and tools without meaning to.  If we seek revenge on those who hurt us, no matter what we say to our kids, they will be revenge seekers.  If we lie, no matter what we tell our kids, they will lie.  We have a responsibility as believers to behave the way Christ teaches, by His actions or the believers following us will imitate our dysfunction and just like parents we will be wondering why they didn't listen, but chose to follow our actions.
     God showed me recently why He often teaches us in parables and through visions and dreams.  A picture is worth a thousand words.  In His parables, like when he talks of planting seed on a rock, don't most of us get a picture in our mind of a seed falling on a rock?  A house built on sand?  When we try to explain how things work or how something happened, don't we often times draw or act it out?  To hear it and visualize it at the same time, speaks to more of our senses and we can internalize it into our heart instead of leaving it swimming around our heads. 
     So, God showed me a picture of a dying woman, full of cancerous bitterness.  He showed me a rejected daughter who is suffering from that bitterness and who now has a choice to forgive or consume the same bitterness.  Then He held up a mirror in front of my face and I saw the same story, though the names and faces were different.  How can I encourage another to do the right thing and forgive if I am not capable of doing it myself?  We have to heal our deepest wounds so the infection does not spread to other parts of the body. 

“They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version