Forgiveness: One Step at a Time
“Trinia is meant to show what happens when you don’t heal, when you stuff it down, hide it, or hold on to the hate that is so justly held against your abuser. I wrote her to show how that same hate hollows you out inside until there is nothing left.” — excerpt from The City of Snow & Stars.
We were driving to the coast when it happened.
My wife and I were discussing some already painful topics around my porn addiction, something I had wrestled with since my teens, when she said, “Can I ask you a question? Something that’s been on my mind for a while?”
Considering the conversation we’d been having, I figured it couldn’t be that bad. “Sure,” I replied, mildly dreading what it would be.
“Did your grandfather ever do anything to you?” she asked.
It was a question my parents had asked many times after we found out some rather unsavory things about him when he passed. There was nothing I could recall, so I answered how I had the previous times: No.
Only when I finished, a memory came roaring back to the surface, and I suddenly found myself in my mind’s eye reliving my grandfather molesting me around the age of 12. My wife saw the change in my demeanor and asked if I was okay.
“He molested me,” I replied. “I can see it and my body is reliving it.”
I gripped the steering wheel in an attempt to ground myself in something other than what I was experiencing. I felt violated, enraged, dirty, and utterly lost.
It was another forty-five minutes before we reached the coast and I could text the guys in my recovery group and let them know what was going on and within half an hour after texting them, I could feel their prayers.
The rest of the day at the beach was wonderful, all things considered, however, I knew I was going to need some serious help to move forward with this. I got into therapy with a sexual trauma specialist soon after.
My emotions were volatile almost daily. I felt raw. I wanted to crawl out of my skin or die under a rock; I didn’t care which, just anything to escape the constant reliving of the memory.
Every waking moment and every night for nearly two weeks were consumed with reliving it, and it only fueled my growing rage.
To say I hated my grandfather would be a gross understatement. If Dante’s Inferno were real, I prayed he would burn in every level of Hell on his way down to the Pit. My anger wasn’t only with him, but with God, too. Why did He allow it to happen?
There were many times I would stop by a local park on my way home from work to sit and journal to try to get a hold of my emotions. The seething rage within me burned hot, and I felt like I was going insane.
Then one day my wife and I watched a show called Forgiving Dr. Mengele, which if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It was the story of a Jewish woman who this Nazi doctor experimented on while she was in his concentration camp during WWII. It spoke of all the horrible things she went through and how, later in life, she was able to forgive him.
She spoke of how she found freedom from the anger, pain, and ultimately the power he still held over her.
After watching it, it confronted me with the fact that if she would forgive her abuser, then I could forgive mine. It was not instant, nor was it easy, but it was necessary. Little by little I started letting go of my hate enough to where I could make the first step in forgiving my grandfather for everything he had done.
Once I managed that first choice of forgiveness, it became a daily choice I had to make over and over and over again. Did that mean I didn’t have days where I wanted him to suffer? Nope. Because guess what? Anyone who tells you they forgave someone once and never had to do it again is likely lying. Want to know how you can test it? See if they say, “Oh, of course I forgive them! But that doesn’t mean I forgot what they did to me.”
Sound familiar?
Here’s the thing about forgiveness and learning to forgive those who have abused you based on my experience: It’s okay to forgive and forget.
Admittedly, this is easier in some ways because my grandfather is dead and gone and I don’t have to see him. But I don’t want to dwell or hold against him what he did to me. What good does that do me? Nothing.
I’m not saying you should live in abuse, nor am I saying you should keep letting people abuse you. There is a big difference between forgiving and forgetting (not holding onto or dwelling on) what happened, and putting up healthy boundaries to keep yourself safe. It’s both/and not either/or.
Forgiving my grandfather did not come of my own power, my will, or some “inner strength”. It came from God and God alone.
He is the only one who can bring lasting healing. It came from allowing Him to work in my life through recovery, one step at a time.
If you wonder how you could forgive your abuser, think of this: How much power do I want to keep giving them over my life?
If you continue to dwell on your abuse, you are still a victim to them and still under their control. Give it to God and take the first step in forgiveness.
My hope for you, dear reader, is that you are encouraged and challenged to take that first step in walking in forgiveness and finding freedom from the power your trauma has held over you.
S. D. Howard
