Michelle,

I've been cogitating that man's "contribution" to your mental map, in my daily prayers. What keeps coming back to me is to ask you, what kind of energy is the most healing for you as you continue this "little battle"? Feeling hurt and angry..... or compassion and forgiveness? (I mean the energy you generate, not the energy that comes at you.)

Compassion and forgiveness don't just come automatically, of course... but they can be prayed for and, when they come to you, accepted.

Your priest no doubt will have more to share on this point, but when I think of one colleague's toughest cancer year, what I think she might have most regretted was a narrow area of hardheartedness where she did not completely achieve forgiveness. One person had asked a thoughtless question out of concern, but it struck L like a doubt about her ultimate recovery. She had the idea that ONLY positive thinking aimed her way was helpful, and no one in her immediate circle at the time quite realized that what she probably needed was a reminder that God's positivity is so much more powerful, and always there to be appropriated. I know that later she DID find her way to let it go, but in the meantime the brokenness in L's one relationship with that person multiplied out all around L, as people scrambled to compete over who was helping and who should be shut out.

So... the steps other people take in the grand dance are the steps they take, but you can choose your own, around them. Praying for (and even giving thanks for) the people who hurt us is a powerful route to healing broken relationships.

~Susan
cc: Hardi