Opening the Door to Sickness and Disease
A plumber named Nuwa used to drop by our house often to fix blocked pipes and other plumbing snags. One morning, we woke up only to find our bathtub blocked. “Call Nuwa”, I advised my husband as I rushed to make our bed. Given the traffic jam and my appointment with a client at nine o’clock that morning, I simply had no time to waste. Fortunately, the plumber showed up right away. However, one look at him and it was easy to tell that he had been unwell. “Nuwa”, my husband said in alarm, “you have lost a lot of weight…. What’s up?” That was when the plumber narrated his plight.
Apparently, over a period of eight months, the man had suffered from a debilitating disease. Yet, despite several visits to doctors coupled with taking this and that medicine, Nuwa’s health had continued to deteriorate. One day, his elder sister Esteri proposed that they attend a healing service conducted by a visiting evangelist, Bob. And, since the sister was a member of the organising committee, she managed to invite Bob for dinner; and to request that the evangelist prays for Esteri’s family, particularly Nuwa. That was when God revealed to Bob that the root of the boy’s sufferings was his failure to forgive a hoard of greedy relatives. “My uncle connived with other family members to sell the land that I had inherited from my late father”, the boy had revealed bitterly. Amazingly, the minute the plumber agreed to forgive his kin; and after having been prayed for, the symptoms of the disease completely disappeared.
One could be tempted to dismiss Nuwa’s experience as ‘extremist’. However, could there be some grain of truth in what he experienced? Scientists have become increasingly interested in the relationship between unforgiveness and poor health. In fact, many agree that failing to forgive can damage one’s mental and physical well-being. It is common knowledge that just seeing or thinking about offenders triggers stress responses that could cause one’s body to experience ‘wear and tear’. Researchers insist that anger, hostility, blame, fear and other emotions that characterise unforgiveness have been associated with hypertension, carotid atherosclerosis; cancer, arthritis, and other stress-related health conditions. If there is any truth in what they are claiming, then unforgiveness is deadly…, very deadly!