Forgiving the Unforgivable

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is such a big word. Not just in the number of letters, but the conscious and purposeful decision to do something for someone else that you think they don't deserve. To forgive someone who has done something that you believe with your entire being is unforgivable is an almost insurmountable task.

I have heard it said many times that some things are not forgivable. They just aren't. Well, that may be true for some folks but for me it was not an option. I had to forgive the unforgivable for my own sanity. To be free of the woman who haunted my every breath, my very being. She made me want to die, and to attempt suicide. She barricaded us in rooms and threatened to kill us with knives, with rifles. She tied us to chairs and built fires on the floor. She beat us until we bled, and locked us in cellars. Unforgivable. I wanted her to pay and I wanted to be free. The only way I knew to be free was to set her free. To do the unforgivable and forgive.

I started to pray to God and ask him to help me to forgive her. I would feel physically ill and immediately tell God that I didn't mean a word I had said to him. That I didn't want what I had asked. That I wanted her to suffer and to pay for what she did. And then I would ask Him to make me willing to forgive her. I would clench me teeth and spit the words out. I would throw up. I would shout that I was telling him lies and would never forgive her, but always end with "Help me even though I don't mean it and don't want you to."

For years I prayed like this. It seemed like God wasn't taking me seriously, but how could he? How serious was my prayer? For me, it was serious. Deadly serious. I knew that God could forgive everything and that included me, who could not forgive. I read that we would be forgiven according to the measure that we forgave. Well now, that was interesting. I wanted to be completely forgiven of all I had ever done wrong, so I had to forgive just as he forgave.

I wrote poems, meditated, prayed, pleaded, bargained, and had tantrums. Somewhere along the way I began to soften. I didn't feel sick anymore. I could say that I meant it and I believed it. I would still get angry that I couldn't just forget about her. To lock her away where no body would be touched by the evil in her again, but I didn't really want that. I wanted to have peace in my life and to be happy, and I wanted the same for her. I really wanted that. Eventually I thought I had come to the place where I could honestly say that I forgave her. Most of the anger had gone and I didn't have that horrible bitterness and rage filled moments when I wanted to hurt her or worse. I had made tremendous progress.

One day, while in my car and listening to Praise Radio they were talking about forgiveness. The person being interviewed was asked how you knew that you had forgiven someone.  He replied that you would know when you no longer had the desire to talk about them in order to bring them shame. WOW! That was some food for thought. I still talked about my mom. I wore the stories like badges of honor. I still had some work to do. Back on my knees.

More years go by and my life hit some very bad bumps. I became estranged from my children. They were angry about my writing and the attention I had got. They felt I was just as bad as my mom and didn't deserve friends. They really have no idea, and they had no desire to hear my story. There life was not good. There father and I were alcoholics, and I had my undiagnosed anxiety, OCD, and C-PTSD. Not a good environment to raise children. I yelled a lot because of the anxiety. I quit drinking in 1989 and spent the next 20+ years doing everything I could to make it up. Everything. I apologized, wrote letters, spoke publicly, let them rage at me, whatever it took, I would take it, because they had deserved better. Until 2010 when I wrote my first story of my life and then my world went upside down.

It was at this lowest point of my life mourning and grieving the relationship of my children that I had given my life. I would have done anything to take the hurt away from them and make it better, but nothing I did was enough. They kept taking more and more. My psychiatrist said that sometimes children who grow up in less than perfect homes and one parent or the other sees the error of their ways and tries to make it up, well; it does something to the children. He said sometimes they become like loan sharks. They don't ever want the debt paid because they like living off the interest. Hmmm... He said close the bank.

From his words I see that I had started a pattern. Whatever they said or did that was hurtful, I let it be; because I thought I deserved it. Over 20 years it became a way of life. A very unhealthy way of life. I had to let them go. I wasn't willing to pay that price any longer. It still hurts very much.

So while in this place of deep hurt and deep pain, of feeling the loss of my babies, my children I heard God. Through my sobs of pain I heard God say to me that my mother was His child and he was crying for her, just as I was crying for mine. I felt his tears mingle with mine on my cheek and I cried for my mom. I cried because I really loved her. I cried and prayed that she would come home to her father, just as I wanted my children to come to their mother. I loved her like I loved my babies. I was free. Really free. Through my guilt and my deep pain God taught me love and real forgiveness. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Yes, all things are forgivable. You have to work at it. Even when you don't believe it and don't want it, because God makes all things possible.

You see, I was a slave to hatred, but now I have been freed to walk in love and forgiveness.

"You have been called to live in freedom. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. Walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." (Galatians 5:13-14,16)

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (Matthew 6:14-15)