A woman dies and Death comes to her. The woman, seeing Death, smiled and said that she was ready.
-What are you ready for? - asked Death
- I’m ready for God to take me to his Paradise! - answered the woman
- Why did you decide that God would take you to him? - asked Death
- Well, how about it? “I suffered so much that I deserved the peace and love of God,” the woman answered.
“What exactly did you suffer from?” - asked Death
- When I was little, my parents always punished me unfairly. They beat me, put me in a corner, shouted at me as if I had done something terrible. When I was at school, my classmates bullied me and also beat and humiliated me. When I got married, my husband drank all the time and cheated on me. My children exhausted my soul, and in the end they didn’t even come to my funeral. When I was working, my boss yelled at me all the time, withheld my salary, left me on weekends, and then fired me without paying me. The neighbors gossiped about me behind my back, saying that I was a prostitute. And one day a robber attacked me and stole my bag and raped me.
- Well, what good have you done in your life? - asked Death
- I was always kind to everyone, went to church, prayed, took care of everyone, pulled everything on myself. I experienced so much pain from this world, like Christ, that I deserved Paradise..
- Well, okay... - answered death - I understand you. There remains a small formality. Sign one agreement and go straight to Paradise.
Death handed her a piece of paper with one sentence to tick. The woman looked at Death and, as if she had been doused with ice water, said that she could not tick this sentence. On the piece of paper it was written: “I forgive all my offenders and ask forgiveness from everyone I offended.”
- Why can’t you forgive them all and ask for forgiveness? - asked Death
- Because they did not deserve my forgiveness, because if I forgive them, it means nothing happened, it means they will not answer for their actions. And I have no one to ask for forgiveness..I didn’t do anything bad to anyone!
—Are you sure about this? – asked Death
- Absolutely!
- How do you feel towards those who caused you so much pain? - asked Death
- I feel anger, rage, resentment! It’s unfair that I have to forget and erase from my memory the evil that people have done to me!
—What if you forgive them and stop having these feelings? – asked death
The woman thought for a while and replied that there would be emptiness inside!
- You have always experienced this emptiness in your heart, and this emptiness devalued you and your life, and the feelings that you experience give significance to your life. Now tell me, why do you feel empty?
- Because all my life I thought that those I loved and those for whom I lived would appreciate me, but in the end they disappointed me. I gave my life to my husband, children, parents, friends, but they did not appreciate it and turned out to be ungrateful.!
— Before God said goodbye to his son and sent him to earth, he finally told him one phrase that was supposed to help him realize the life in himself and himself in this life..
—What? – asked the woman
- THE WORLD STARTS WITH YOU..!
- What does this mean?
- So he didn’t understand what God told him... It’s about the fact that only you are responsible for everything that happens in your life! You CHOOSE to suffer or be happy! So explain to me who exactly caused you so much pain?
- It turns out I’m on my own... - the woman answered in a trembling voice
- So who can’t you forgive?
- Yourself? - the woman answered in a crying voice
- Forgiving yourself means admitting your mistake! Forgiving yourself means accepting your imperfections! Forgiving yourself means opening up to yourself! You hurt yourself and decided that the whole world is to blame for this, and they don’t deserve your forgiveness... And you want God to accept you with open arms?! Have you decided that God is like a soft-bodied, stupid old man who will open doors for fools and evil sufferers?! Do you think he created the perfect place for people like you? When you create your own paradise, where first of all you, and then the others, will feel good, then you will knock on the doors of the heavenly abode, but for now God gave me instructions to send you back to earth so that you learn to create a world in which love and care reign. And those who cannot take care of themselves live in the deep delusion that they can take care of others. Do you know how God punishes a woman who considers herself an ideal mother?
—How? - asked the woman
- He sends her children, whose destinies are broken before her eyes...
- I understood... I could not make my husband loving and devoted. I couldn’t raise my children to be happy and successful. I couldn’t preserve the hearth where there would be peace and harmony... In my world, everyone suffered...
- Why? - asked Death
- I wanted everyone to feel sorry for me and have compassion.. But no one felt sorry for me.. And I thought that God would definitely take pity on me and hug me!
- Remember that the most dangerous people on earth are those who want to arouse pity and compassion for themselves.. They are called “victims”... Your greatest ignorance is that you think that God needs someone’s victim! He will never allow into his abode someone who has known nothing but pain and suffering, for this sacrifice will sow pain and suffering in his world...! Go back and learn to love and care for yourself, and then for those who live in your world. First, ask yourself for forgiveness for your ignorance and forgive yourself for it!
The woman closed her eyes and began the journey again, but only under a different name and with different parents.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru