A woman once told her therapist that she and her husband and couldn't say two words to each other without drawing blood. She that the second he walked through the door, they were at each other's throats. Deep down, she knew the love was still there, but it seemed hopelessly buried.
The therapist listening to her intently; then he reached into his drawer, pulled out a bottle, and handed it to her. "This is special water, holy water from a sacred spring in India," the therapist...
A woman once told her therapist that she and her husband and couldn't say two words to each other without drawing blood. She that the second he walked through the door, they were at each other's throats. Deep down, she knew the love was still there, but it seemed hopelessly buried.
The therapist listening to her intently; then he reached into his drawer, pulled out a bottle, and handed it to her. "This is special water, holy water from a sacred spring in India," the therapist explained. "For the next week, whenever your husband is about to enter the room, take a drink, hold your tongue and look into his eyes. After a couple of seconds, swallow it. You should notice an improvement in your interactions right away."
The woman went home and waited eagerly for her husband to return. When he walked in, she took a swig of the blessed water and silently held his gaze. He gave her a suspicious look and then grinned curiously. She swallowed the water and asked how his day went. Amazingly, they didn't argue. In fact, they had one of the warmest and loving conversations they had had in recent memory.
The next night before he came to bed, she snuck another jolt of the powerful liquid, performing the same ritual. Suddenly, as if a veil was lifted, she saw him in a whole new light: she saw him as if it were the first time they met; and, of course, the predictable fight never came.
The following week, the woman returned to her therapist, proclaiming that the treatment had healed her marriage and that she needed to get more of this miraculous water — and fast.
The therapist smiled and revealed that the potent elixir was nothing but store-bought Mountain Spring water.
It’s not the "magical" water that reconnects these two spouses — it’s the woman's desire to heal their relationship that brings about reconciliation. The miracle that healed the woman's turbulent marriage was not the water but her willingness to drink it: to stop and look at her husband with new eyes, to put aside her urge to lash out from her hurts and disappointments and speak, first, from the love they cherish in one another.
The request that the leper makes of Jesus — If you wish, you can make me clean — is a challenge to us who now seek to follow Jesus. We possess within ourselves the resources to heal and restore our relationships with others — what is needed first is the will to put aside our own fears and doubts and interests to do so. Christ promises us the grace to be imitators of his compassion and forgiveness whenever we are ready to take the first step in healing the wounds and cleaning the "leprosy" that afflicts us and divides us from one another.+
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