Dear Mel:
I’ve read both of your books. I really enjoyed them both and your honesty. Sadly we share the same kind of history. I’ve seen you refer to your abuse as a blessing. I have so much rage and anger toward my abuser, I can’t imagine this. I want to move on with my life but there are days where I just cannot forgive. How do you do it? Do you ever wonder who you’d be if you hadn’t had this experience? I mourn my childhood. I mourn what could have been. I hope it’s okay to use your dear mel to ask these things. I’m really struggling.
~Struggling From Abuse~
Dear Struggling:
This is the perfect place to ask your questions and thank you for doing so. Thank you for your kind words about my books. I so appreciate that and I am so encouraged that you are working on forgiving. That is an excellent start and I am so proud of you because I know how hard it is to face it.
As I say in my book, How I Forgave My Molester, it took me many, many years in order to get to a place of forgiveness. It didn’t happen over night. When I say my past is a blessing, what I mean by that is that what God has taught me and has done with my awful experience, is a blessing. I’m still floored by what He has done with my story.
This is not an easy road. I wish I could tell you it was but it’s just not. I had to choose to stand on God’s promise that He works all things for good. What satan intended for evil, God turned around and has done something awesome with. God gave me a voice and a platform to help others and satan hates it. He is going to challenge you because you want to heal. Satan will lie to you and taunt you with the fact that you’ll never get over it. You may never get over it but you can heal and you can forgive and get to a place where it’s not forever in the forefront of your mind.
I have mourned the loss of an innocent childhood. I’ve wondered who I’d be but the compassion it has instilled in me for other women isn’t something I’d give up. And I rest knowing that while this life is painful, someday we will be whole and pain free.
We need to be more gentle with ourselves. Forgiveness isn’t always about kicking something to the curb and never having to deal with it again. Jesus said we are to forgive 70×7 times. Forgiveness is a choice and you may have to do it again and again and again.
We can’t predict when a flashback will occur or when something will trigger a memory. And that can be really hard because we like closure as human beings. We want to shut the door and say, “Okay, I’m done with that. Let’s move on.” When we allow room for there to be days when we will have to choose to forgive again, we tend to beat ourselves up a little less for having to do this again.
Don’t give up. Know the road ahead is rough but so worth it. And by all means, mourn the loss of your childhood and who you may have become! Be angry! Just don’t get stuck in that place of mourning or anger because I truly believe God has something bigger for you! Keep praying and keep trusting Him to get you through this. If He did it for me, He will do it for you.
In Him,
Photo Credit: luigi diamanti at Freedigitalphotos.net
Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences below in the comments. Dear Mel isn’t all about me, it’s about us as a community offering our advice to help someone!
*Dear Mel is an old column I used to write and no longer available to submit questions. You can always email me though!
wow, was that the perfect answer! Yes! What you answered to this question is exactly what I would have answered, and wanted to hear, but I cannot communicate like you can. God bless you, sister, you have a gift, you are a gift.
Dawn, you are so sweet!
Hello Struggling,
What honesty! I want to thank you for your courage. Seeing Melinda, for example, be open about her trauma and the love and the support she received especially from God could open up the possibility of trust to receive healing from God for your trauma.
As you know, Struggling, healing is some of the hardest work you will ever do. I sometimes feel like you could compare healing to climbing a mountain. Another survivor will understand the heroic nature of your journey (usually). What we often do, amongst ourselves is share what works for us. The thought is to keep what works, discard what doesn’t.
Music plays a huge part in my life. I want to share one song in particular that I think may bless you. Jason Gray ‘Remind Me Who I Am.” You can hear it on You Tube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKyY8zfjBMQ&ob=av2e
I may come back later and see what other suggestions are offered. Take Gentle Care, please!
Totally agree! I listed 14 songs in the back of How I Forgave My Molester because music is so important. One of them was Jason Gray’s song, I Am New. I absolutely adore, Remind Me Who I Am. Most of his music is awesome! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Here are my top five coping skills.
1. Know when to take a mental health day (or as I like to call them a ‘5 mile an hour’ day).
2. Obtain love. Avoid Pity.
3. Know when you are nearing overwhelm and simplify the schedule accordingly.
4. Take a long look at currrent relationships to make sure I am not getting re-injured.
5. Have more than one successful way to de-stress and recharge. If one way is sometimes blocked or unavailable, I can still release my anxiety and fear.
“Forgiveness is a choice and you may have to do it again and again and again.”
This is my most favorite part of this post. It really implies how we should learn to forgive others and even ourselves for whatever happened in the past.
Henriette recently posted..review of jamplay
Yes, be gentle..
be sad..
be patient..
Be still and know that He is God
Psalms 46:10
Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ
Amy
Dear Struggling,
As a survivor I know how hard forgiveness is. Especially when we look at it from the world’s view where it is seen as us letting the abuser ‘off the hook’ when, in truth, it has very little to do with them and everything to do with us.
Forgiveness is something you do for yourself. I wrote about my struggle with it here, http://scarred-seeker.blogspot.ca/2011/06/forgiving-to-freedom.html
Forgiveness is what you do to let go of the hurt, anger, fear and confusion and give it to God to take care of. That includes your abuser. Think of it, letting someone go from our human hands into the hands of a Living God who loves you!
When you can let go, you are forgiving because you are letting them go. You don’t have to carry them around anymore. You can start working your way through to healing and freedom. You see the biggest lie they want you to still believe is that you didn’t make it. But you did! You survived, you have made it through to the side where healing can begin. You just need to let them go.
Praying for you.
Shanyn recently posted..Poetry Wednesday!
Letting go your hatred is the most and best way to find your happiness after what happen to you. Just always pray and God will do the rest.