Some years ago I was doing Tarot readings at a local shopping mall. An elderly lady sat down in front of me. Her opening words were, “This is the first time I have done this. I have been a Catholic all my life. I have been taught that these things are wrong. But this morning I prayed and prayed for help with a problem that has been troubling me deeply, and I have been guided to you. I believe that you are the answer to my prayer.”

 

I was both humbled and daunted by her words. I shuffled the cards, spread them in front of her, and we began. It was immediately obvious that her troubles had their roots in the past, and it was generational, affecting her entire family, especially the women. Her daughter was very angry with her, and as a result was refusing to let her help her grand daughter, who was also having a very bad time of it, and was angry with her own mother.

 

Very gently, I began to probe into what was so painfully obvious – that these women had all been sexually abused, and were angry with each other for not supporting each other through it. The lady I was reading for began to cry. “You know,” she said, “I’m 83 years old and I’ve never spoken of this to another living soul. In my day, you just didn’t. You kept it to yourself and soldiered on. It wasn’t to be thought about, let alone talked about.”

 

To cut a long story short, she went away resolved to seek counseling for herself; to tell her daughter that she herself had been a victim; to explain that she had never seen the pattern that was haunting the women of the family. For indeed her grand daughter had been sexually abused by the same man who had been responsible for her own abuse and had almost certainly molested her daughter – her own brother. It was a family Secret that was about to see the light of day, so that healing could begin.

 

I tell this story because the message is that it is never too late. However dark or difficult a problem can seem, healing can still take place, even if you’re 83 years old. It all begins with a desire to make things better, and a prayer…