Perceptions #41

"The Berry Spoon"

Author Unknown

"I'll never forgive him. I told him I would NEVER forgive him." The attractive elderly lady spoke softly, but with resolve, as I attended to her nightly cares. Her expression was troubled as she turned away, focusing her eyes on the drape closing in her nursing home bed. Our conversations had traveled from the temporal to the eternal and now a deep hurt had surfaced.

She told of how her brother had approached her hospital bed, accusing her of taking more than her share of family heirlooms following their mother's death. He spoke of various items, ending with "the berry spoon." He said, "I want the berry spoon." For the forty years since the parent's death he had hidden his feelings, and now they erupted. She was both hurt and angered by his accusation and vowed never to forgive him. "It's my spoon. It was given to me," she defended herself. "He's wrong and I won't forgive him."

Standing at her bedside, I felt my spirit soften and grieve. A spoon. . . a berry spoon. In the bed before me lay a woman given two months to live-sixty days-and she would face eternity and never see her brother again in this life. Her mind and spirit were in anguish, and her only remaining family tie was broken over a berry spoon.

As I returned to my nurse's station I was drawn deep in thought. How many berry spoons are there in my life? How many things, as insignificant as a spoon, in light of eternity, separate me from full communion with God?" How much lack of forgiveness keeps me from fellowship with others?

"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you; But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14-15)

Norman's e-mail address is: nlbales@allaboutfamilies.org

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