And He Embraced Him – A Story of Reconciliation and Healing

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And He Embraced him is a warm and moving story about ordinary people, a doctor’s deep compassion and a son’s forgiveness of the father who abandoned him at an early age. It is also about poor people who, forced to survive in a cruel, selfish world spontaneously live. Above all, it is a story of reconciliation and healing brought about by the embrace of forgiveness.

I share a special relationship with some of the doctors in the Christian Medical College and Hospital, Vellore. Often one of them will call and ask me to pray for a special patient, or speak to a family in distress, or just sit beside someone who is dying. Sometimes they just want to share their pain.

One day a young doctor called and told me that he had a patient, a labourer with severe injuries. The man was in a coma. The doctor was in despair as he could not see any hope for this patient. “Even if he were to wake up, he would not be able to move again due to injuries to his spinal cord. Please pray for him as he has no family,” he said.

The man lay heavily on my mind that whole week. “Why do things like this happen?” I wondered. “Of what use is a life like this?”

Then the story began to unfold. It was about ordinary people who are challenged to live with compassion and generosity in a cruel, selfish world. It made me see that the poor whom we see all around us also live lives rich in love. It touched me deeply.

Writing the story was an act of discovery. It answered my question, “Of what use is a life like this?” I journeyed with it from despair and hopelessness, to a celebration of life and love. I now appreciate the fact that God Moves in mysterious ways…bones and bodies are broken…lives are shared…stories get told, written and read…lives are changed.

Life, I realized is not only for the healthy and strong.