Healing Unforgiveness ...

Mary Magdalene
Originally uploaded by Simon_K
I have a deck called the Goddess Guidance cards which I used to draw from on a weekly basis. I have not done this in over a month. This morning, I was very pulled to draw a card and ask for guidance.
I chose one that I had never picked before: Mary Magdalene.

There are stories circulated about her. She was the one who washed Jesus' feet and she was the one he came to when he arose from the dead. She was also speculated to be a sinner and a prostitute, that she was the secret bride of Jesus. The message about her in my deck of cards is that she is chosen when you want to heal the unforgiveness, the judgments you've had in your life.


I have let myself sit for awhile with the message of this card and allowed myself to be open to what may come up about the people or situations where I still have unforgiveness.
First, what is interesting to me is that I had 2 situations that I wrote about at the start of the weekend, Fri night and yesterday, which involved judgment. Second, I am on the heels of having completed a big piece of work around forgiveness of myself in terms of all that was present that kept me from having a connected relationship with my mother and that in this piece of work, there was forgiveness for her and compassion.

I checked in with myself about my father and I feel like the forgiveness for him and for myself in how I regarded him is now in the past. I would venture to say that this is true about my ex, particularly after writing a letter of amends. I close my eyes and reach in deeper ... there is the unborn child that I aborted after being raped. I feel a lump in my throat and I do not believe I have fully completed a piece of forgiveness in this situation. For the young man who raped me or for myself -- putting myself in harm's way because I was very drunk. And then the choice that I made after.

The abortion, without a shadow of a doubt, was the right decision. To have brought a child into the world in the throws of my alcoholism would have been cruel and unkind. I didn't make the decision, however, at that time for this "bigger picture" reason; I made the decision because I couldn't bear the idea of being pregnant , the shame associated with that because of the rape, nor did I want to stop drinking. Having a baby, in my alcoholic mind, was a barrier to the bottle. That's the ugly, bottom-line truth. Just as Mary Magdalene was considered a sinner by some, I was too by Pro-lifers. I can vividly remember their signs aggressively put in front of me as I walked into the clinic that chilly November morning. My 2 college friends, one on either side of me, pushed through the hostile protestors. This was, for quite a long time, a dirty little secret I stuffed under layers of booze that saturated my insides. To this day, I have only shared this with a handful of trusted people in my life. I never shared this with my mother. My unforgiveness about this situation entered into the time period when I was going through the artificial insemination process with my ex. All the physical tests revealed that I was totally capable of getting pregnant without complication. After 8 attempts and a completely depleted bank account -- financially and emotionally -- we gave up. And what occurred for me in these failures to conceive was that I was being punished by G-d for having committed the sin of aborting a child. And for that, I would not be given the chance to have another. Intellectually and more so now, from my renewed relationship with G-d, I know in my heart that G-d does not punish. That the love I experience from G-d is unconditional. So, perhaps this is all arising at a time I can receive it, so there can be true healing and forgiveness.

The squeezing in my chest as I type is a signal that there is both more and that it is time to pause in this process. I am going to honor what I am being shown and listen to my inner wisdom.